Michael tippett

Michael tippett: a child of our time
Tippett studio
Michael tippett operas

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Michael Tippett: The Biography (Omnibus)

The music of the British composer Michael Tippett - including the oratorio A Child of Our Time, five operas, and four symphonies - is among the most visionary of the 20th Century.

Yet little has been written about his extraordinary life.

In this fresh, first complete biography, arts writer and broadcaster Oliver Soden weaves a century-spanning narrative of epic scope and insight.

Soden has been given unprecedented access to unpublished letters and manuscripts, and has recorded interviews with Tippett’s friends and colleagues. He paints a portrait of a powerful intellect and infectious personality - charming, with a consuming interest in other people, stubborn and great fun.

But he also uncovers the sorrows and secrets that Tippett stowed away beneath his cheerfulness, not least the darker reaches of some tempestuous and often tragic love affairs that sometimes blurred the lines between the professional and the personal.

Tippett’s was a long, exciting life - and woven through it all is his amazing, varied music, as beautiful as it is

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Born in London on 2 January 1905, Sir Michael Tippett spent his childhood at Wetherden in Suffolk County. From 1909 to 1914, he was raised by private tutors, who taught him piano among other things, and by a governess. From 1914 to 1918, he attended Brookfield Preparatory School in Dorset; he received his secondary education at Fettes College in Edinburgh. However, in 1920, upon learning that their son was in a homosexual relationship with a fellow student, his parents transfered him to Stamford School in Lincolnshire. From 1923 to 1928, Tippett undertook study at the Royal College of Music, making the most of the music and theatre scenes in London, the latter of which would have a deep influence on his artistic career. He later moved to Oxted in Surrey, teaching French at a private school in Limpsfield and conducting a choir and an orchestra as part of a concert society, all while dedicating most of his time to composition. On 5 April 1930, key works from Tippet's youth were performed in a concert in Oxted; the composer withdrew those works from his catalogue soon thereafter.

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Michael Tippett

English composer (1905–1998)

For the Canadian businessman, see Michael Tippett (businessman).

Sir Michael Kemp Tippett CH CBE (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as one of the leading British composers of the 20th century. Among his best-known works are the oratorioA Child of Our Time, the orchestral Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli, and the opera The Midsummer Marriage.

Tippett's talent developed slowly. He withdrew or destroyed his earliest compositions, and was 30 before any of his works were published. Until the mid-to-late 1950s his music was broadly lyrical in character, before changing to a more astringent and experimental style. New influences—including those of jazz and blues after his first visit to America in 1965—became increasingly evident in his compositions. While Tippett's stature with the public continued to grow, not all critics approved of