Kevin Sutton <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>Tippett for me has always been a rather hit and miss composer.
>Certainly he was talented but to my ears his later works became difficult
>for difficult's sake.

They got easier again in his 'last' period; but the undoubted difficulties
of his rich 'middle' period(s) are a reflection of Tippett's sense of
the increasing complexity and horror of the modern, post-war era.  They
are perhaps no more "difficult for difficult's sake" than the late works
of Beethoven which they bring to mind - for this listener at least.

>One piece that stands out for me though is the oratorio "A Child of Our
>Time" which tells the true story of an orphaned boy who kills a German
>soldier in revenge for the deaths of his parents in the second world
>war.  It incorporates African-american spirituals as a sort of post-Bach
>"turba" and is quite effective indeed.

"A Child ..." remains brilliantly effective.  It was in fact conceived
and its libretto written before World War 2, in response to the
headline-grabbing assassination of a leading Nazi official in Paris,
by a Jewish youth desperate to draw attention to his family's plight
in Germany and the threat Hitler posed to a sleepy Western world.
That youth, imprisoned in France, had needless to say disappeared
without trace by the time of the work's premiere in 1944.

Then, although Tippett composes one or two very effective 'Turba' sections
for the chorus expressing mass emotion, in the manner of those violent,
brief choral interventions in Bach's passions, his 'Spirituals' are there
as moments of contemplative reflection - thus mirroring not Bach's
'Turbas', but his 'Chorales'.

Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK
http://www.zarzuela.net
"ZARZUELA!" The Spanish Music Site