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Here I will present (not review) some of my books about Sir Michael Tippett
From the back cover of this book:
"Michael Tippett's oratorio A child of our time was written at the
begining of the second world war as an expression of "man's inhumanity to
man". It has become one of his most widely known works and one which is seen
to symbolise the composer's extra-musical concerns, both political and
psychological. This study places these concerns within a wider historical and
cultural context while also focusing on spesific aspects of Tippett's musical
language. Central to this enquiry is Tippett's relationship to the work of
T.S. Eliot, a relationship which is seen to condition both the text and its
musical representation trough Tippett's allusions to specific poetic images
within the text and references to historical genres, forms and gestures within
the musical dimension. Also of importance is the initial critical reception of
the work, a reception which determinded responses that still surround the
work."
 | Sir Michael Tippett: Those twentieth century blues - An autobiography.
Hutchinson. More info
Relevant mail order links:
Amazon.co.uk
Mao.no |
From the back cover of the book:
"Michael Tippett's autobiography is as idiosyncratic as the man himself,
revealing his insatiable curiosity about people and places, ideas and
sensations, ragtime, jazz and rock as well as symphonies, string quartets and
opera. Often wickedly funny and irreverent, it centres partly on dreams -
those which have sustained him as an artist, those which proved a turning
point in his personal life.
In an exceptional life, spanning nearly the whole of the 20th century,
Tippett has engaged with many difficult issues - from sexual liberation to
revolutionary politics and pacifism. The cast of the characters in Those
Twentieth Century Blues includes not only the musicians with whom he has been
associated - Malcolm Sargent, Adrian Boult, Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears,
Herbert von Karajan and Yehudi Menuhin - but also literary figures such as
T.S. Eliot, Christopher Fry and Edith Sitwell. We meet Tippett the traveller -
hiking all over Europe in his youth, undertaking exotic journeys in his old
age. We glimpse something of his activities at 1030s work camps for the
unemployed and of behind-the-scenes wrangles at Covent Garden opera house.
Uninhibitedly, also, he lays bare the tensions of his life between musical
composition and the pursuit of personal relationships."
From the back cover of the book:
"Sir Michael Tippett has been a central figure in British musical life for
many decades and now widely regarded as one of the foremost composers of the
century.
Meirion Bowen's new updated study offers an in-depth examination of all
Tippett's major compositions - extending from the First String Quartet
(1934-35), where his rhytmic vitality, melodic freshness and dramatic tension
are first encountered, though to the ground-breaking works of his subsequent
decades, right up to those of his astonishing Indian summer, such as The Rose
Lake (1991-1993).
The author's thirty-five year association with the composer and immense
experience of Tippett's music in performance result in some unique insights
into his creative personality. Working with the full cooperation of Sir
Michael Tippett, Meirion Bowen sketches his development and considers each
work in a context of aesthetic and technical exploration. Above all, he
illustrates those strands of continuity running throughout Tippett's work that
have made it so distinctive and individual.
Bowel reveals a Blake-like visionary and an intensely human artist,
sensitive to both people and to public events in a strife-torn century, but
also stubbornly upholding the integrity and independence of his art."
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