Michael Tippett, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Michael Tippett

English composer

Date of Birth: 02-Jan-1905

Place of Birth: London

Date of Death: 08-Jan-1998

Profession: composer, conductor, musician, librettist, musicologist, autobiographer

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn


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About Michael Tippett

  • Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (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 oratorio A 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 these changes in style, some believing that the quality of his work suffered as a consequence.
  • From around 1976 Tippett's late works began to reflect the works of his youth through a return to lyricism.
  • Although he was much honoured in his lifetime, critical judgement on Tippett's legacy has been uneven, the greatest praise being generally reserved for his earlier works.
  • His centenary in 2005 was a muted affair; apart from the few best-known works, his music has been performed infrequently in the 21st century. Having briefly embraced communism in the 1930s, Tippett avoided identifying with any political party.
  • A pacifist after 1940, he was imprisoned in 1943 for refusing to carry out war-related duties required by his military exemption.
  • His initial difficulties in accepting his homosexuality led him in 1939 to Jungian psychoanalysis; the Jungian dichotomy of "shadow" and "light" remained a recurring factor in his music.
  • He was a strong advocate of music education, and was active for much of his life as a radio broadcaster and writer on music.

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