The Classical Music Book

285

See also: St. Matthew Passion 98–105 ■ Dvorˇ ák’s Symphony No. 9 212–215 ■ The Dream of Gerontius 218–219 ■

Peter Grimes 288–293 ■ Einstein on the Beach 321

MODERN 1900 –1950

social and political events. Michael

Tippett’s secular oratorio, A Child

of Our Time, was inspired by the

three-part format of Handel’s

Messiah, as well as the structure

of J.S. Bach’s Passions. However,

instead of using chorales, as Bach

had, Tippett’s work contains

American spiritual songs, which

Tippett decided to include after

hearing the style in a radio

broadcast. He believed that these

spirituals, with their origins as

slave songs, had a universal

appeal that traditional hymns

did not. For example, 19th-century

songs such as “Go Down, Moses”

were appropriated for the oppressed

Jews of the early 20th century.

Wartime context

Tippett was heavily influenced by

his left-wing, pacifist beliefs. He

was sentenced to three months in

prison in 1943 for non-compliance

with rules for conscientious

objectors. Tippett’s feelings about

World War II and its causes were

expressed through A Child of Our

Time, which tells the story of the

killing of a German diplomat by

Herschel Grynszpan—a teenage

Polish Jew—in November 1938.

The act triggered Kristallnacht

(the “Night of Broken Glass”), an

officially sanctioned Nazi pogrom

against German Jews in which

Jewish property was destroyed and

some 200 Jews died. Tippett saw

Grynszpan, who had acted in

response to the deportation of his

parents by Nazi authorities, as a

perfect example of how tyranny

and oppression could drive a

marginalized person to commit

an unthinkable act.

Protesting inhumanity

Tippett began composing A Child

of Our Time in 1939, in the days

after Britain declared war on

Germany. He intended his work to

be a protest against the disunity in

Europe and the fascist atrocities of

the Nazi regime. Tippett wrote

both the music and libretto. The

work uses choral techniques, such

as counterpoint, arias, and triadic

harmonies, and utilizes a bass

singer as the narrator vocalizing

recitatives. While the oratorio has

two major moods, anger and grief,

it ends on a note of hope, with the

spiritual “Deep River”: “O don’t

you want to go to that gospel feast.

That promised land, that land

where all is peace.”

Concern with contemporary

events is also shown by Benjamin

Britten’s War Requiem, which

added antiwar poems by Wilfred

Owen to the standard text of the

Requiem Mass. ■

Michael Tippett Michael Tippett was born in

London in 1905. He studied at

the Royal College of Music from

1923 until 1928 and subsequently

took lessons from the counterpoint

expert R.O. Morris. He then

worked as a schoolteacher, first

making his mark as a composer

with his Concerto for Double

String Orchestra (1939); he

followed this with the oratorio

A Child of Our Time, which

premiered in 1944.

Perceived as an individual

voice in English music, concerned

with a variety of social, political,

and philosophical issues, Tippett

went on to produce a sequence

of operas, beginning with The

Midsummer Marriage (1955). In

1966, he received a knighthood.

In Tippett’s later years, his

reputation grew internationally,

leading to US premieres for

The Mask of Time (Boston, 1984)

and New Year (Houston, 1989).

Tippett died in London in 1998,

after suffering a stroke.

Other key works

1955 The Midsummer Marriage

1970 The Knot Garden

1991–1992 The Rose Lake

Men were ashamed

of what was done.

There was bitterness

and horror.

A Child of Our Time

Narrator, bass solo

US_284-285_Tippett.indd 285 26/03/18 1:01 PM