Tippett, Michael (EN)

Tippett Sir Michael Kemp, *2 January 1905 London, †8 January 1998 London, English composer, conductor and music critic. The son of a lawyer and entrepreneur and a suffragette (Isabel Kemp). He inherited his mother’s leftist worldview and artistic ambitions. He spent his childhood on the country estate of Wetherden (Suffolk), where he took piano lessons from his mother and local teachers. In 1918–20, he studied at Fettes College in Edinburgh, and in 1920–22, at Stamford Grammar School in Lincolnshire. In 1923–28, he studied composition (Ch. Wood and C.H. Kitson), conducting (A. Boult, M. Sargent) and piano (A. Raymar) at the Royal College of Music in London. In 1928–51, he lived in Oxted (Surrey), where until 1934, he worked as a French teacher, organist and piano teacher. He organised amateur music life and conducted vocal groups performing, among others, English madrigals; he composed pieces adapted to the performing abilities of amateurs, including the ballad opera Robin Hood (1934), and operas for children Robert of Sicily (1938) and Seven at One Stroke (1939).

In 1930, he presented his own compositions at his own concert but considered them immature, and in 1930–32, he studied counterpoint and fugue with R.O. Morris. During the economic crisis, he became involved in socio-political activities combined with the promotion of early English music among music lovers from poor social classes. In 1933, he founded and led an ensemble of unemployed musicians at Morley College in London: South London Orchestra. In 1935, he joined the British Communist Party but left the party ranks after a few months.

In 1940, he joined a pacifist organisation (Peace Pledge Union); in 1943, he was sent to auxiliary military service, but he refused to take part in the anti-aircraft defence, for which he was sentenced to three months in prison. In 1940–51, he served as dean of the faculty of music at the Morley College in London. He conducted the local choir and orchestra and organised concerts, at which he presented mainly early music (especially Purcell, Tallis, Dowland, and Monteverdi), contributing to the renaissance of Purcell’s music.

The publication of Tippett’s works (composed after 1935) by Schott, and the success of the oratorio A Child of our Time (London performance 1944) and a series of concerts in 1951 at the newly built Royal Festival Hall were of great importance in his artistic career. In 1951–60, he lived at Tidebrook Manor in Sussex, began to work with BBC Radio (he published selected texts in the book Moving into Aquarius, among others), and devoted himself primarily to composing. He continued to occasionally conduct various ensembles, both professional and amateur. From 1960, he lived at Corsham Park, and in 1969–74, he was artistic director of the Bath Festival.

Tippett’s trip to the United States in 1965 was of great importance in his compositional career. It was the first of many visits to the country where he gained particular recognition and where many concerts and festivals of his music and premieres (including Symphony No. 4, The Mask of Time) took place. Tippett gained international fame as a composer and conductor of his own works and as a brilliant commentator on musical life. In 1966–70, he was a critic for the BBC Central Music Advisory Council.

Celebrating his 80^th birthday, he was still very active: he continued to compose, conduct and travel (including to Australia, Africa, and Asia). In 1963, the composer met Meirion Bowen (b. 1940), who from 1974 served as Tippett’s personal assistant and manager; he accompanied him on concert tours (including three world tours), coordinated the composer’s public activities, edited his autobiography (Those Twentieth Century Blues, 1991) and books of essays, promoted his music and published works devoted to his musical output (including the book Michael Tippett (1982, 2^nd ed. 1997). Tippett dedicated The Mask of Time (1982) to him.

Tippett’s 90^th birthday was marked by a month-long festival at the Barbican with the premiere of his last major composition, The Rose Lake. This was followed by eleven performances during Tippett’s two-month tour of the USA and Canada (i.a. Boston, Toronto, and Hartford). In 1995, a collection of essays Tippett on Music was published, as well as Caliban’s Song (for baritone and piano), commissioned by the BBC, which was Tippett’s contribution to the 300^th anniversary of Purcell’s death. In 1997, a 12-day “Tippett Festival” was held in Stockholm; The Mask of Time was performed, as well as almost all of Tippett’s instrumental music (all symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and piano sonatas).

Festivals of Tippett’s music, exhibitions and symposia were organised in Europe, the United States, South Africa, Australia and Asia to mark the centenary of his birth. In Poland, the Warsaw Autumn Festival featured Boyhood’s End in 1961, Symphony No. 4 in 1978 and The Vision of St. Augustine in 1989; the Wratislavia Cantans Festival in 1994 featured A Child of our Time, Symphony No. 1 and songs.

Tippett was a member of various societies, including the Music Advisory Committee of the British Council from 1949 to 1965; a Fellow of the Royal College of Music from 1961; an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters from 1973; an Extraordinary Fellow of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin from 1976; he received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Cambridge and Dublin in 1964, from the University of Leeds in 1965; a Knight of the British Empire in 1966; the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1976; and the Order of Merit in 1983. In 1979, he donated his manuscripts to the British Library and with the funds he received, he founded The Michael Tippett Musical Foundation.

Tippett – alongside B. Britten – is the most interesting artistic personality in English music of his generation. He gained international interest and recognition since the 1960s (partly thanks to his recorded works). He is particularly valued in America: some of his most important works (such as Symphony No. 4 and The Mask of Time) were commissioned by music institutions in the USA (i.a. by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra). Tippett’s over 60-year activity as a composer, organiser of musical life, conductor and music critic was a testimony to his belief in the “spiritual” and integrating function of music in a technological and secularised society. Tippett was convinced of the need to address existential and philosophical problems in vocal-instrumental works concerning the sense of injustice, suffering, alienation, discrimination and the desire for freedom and social acceptance. Tippett’s artistic personality was influenced by his literary and philosophical interests (including his acquaintance with T.S. Eliot and fascination with the philosophy of Jung and Bergson) and his involvement in socio-political activities. He slowly shaped and perfected his compositional skills. He began composing in the 1920s but critically evaluating his compositions, he published works composed only after 1935 (String Quartet No. 1, Piano Sonata No. 1). His compositional output is dominated by works with his own texts (five operas, oratorios, cantatas, songs), while orchestral, piano and chamber works are also of significant importance.

Tippet’s soundscape is varied; he was fascinated by early music, especially English madrigals and native folklore, he modelled himself on Beethoven’s works, but he was also open to Negro spirituals, popular music, especially American music, and jazz; he adapted Stravinsky’s creative proposals in an original way. The avant-garde sounds associated with the slogan of “emancipation of dissonance” were not an end in themselves – in vocal-instrumental works, they were subordinated to the idea of ​​strong agitation or quasi-pathological emotional states.

Tippett’s work can be divided into two periods, with a turning point at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, associated with the opera King Priam performed in Coventry (1962) during the opening ceremony of the new cathedral built on the foundations of the temple destroyed during the war. In works composed in the 1930s and 1940s, Tippett referred to Beethoven’s shaping of form and harmonic processing of contrasting themes, but he also used contrapuntal technique with pleasure, especially in slow movements (e.g. in the Double Concerto, Symphony No. 1, and string quartets). An original aspect of the instrumental music composed at that time is the adaptation of the Baroque ground bass principle (a manifestation of interest in early music, especially Purcell) and the technique of variable metric accents and the principle of montage (inspired by Stravinsky’s music). The pretext for writing Tippett’s most frequently performed work, the oratorio A Child of our Time (with Negro spirituals), was a historical event (the Jewish massacre – Kristallnacht, in revenge for the killing of a German diplomat by Herschel Grynspan).

Tippett’s first opera, The Midsummer Marriage, is comic in nature and is an attempt to synthesise various traditions of musical theatre; the mythological nature of the text suggests Wagnerian connotations, the vocal parts are modelled on the tradition of Italian music (Verdi, Puccini), and the presence of dances recalls English masks. In his next opera, King Priam, inspired by Homer’s Iliad and Brecht’s epic theatre, Tippett radically changed the means of musical expression. He combined the dramatic experiences of the ancient heroes with a modernist mosaic of “musical gestures” (dissonant, atonal) with a contrasting quality of sound, resulting from the use of both different sound arrangements and varied instrumentation (Tippett divided the extensive orchestral ensemble into various chamber ensembles). The composer shaped the form by alternating contrasting segments and their modification, which gave the impression of an interrupted continuation (dis-continuation) of musical ideas. This construction principle was also used by him in the instrumental works composed in the 1960s (e.g. in Piano Sonata No. 2, Concerto for Orchestra, and in the first movement of Symphony No. 3, where two segments entitled Arrest and Movement are juxtaposed).

Tippett was intrigued by the problem of time, its passing or duration as eternity. In The Vision of St. Augustine, he used the Latin text from the Confessions of St. Augustine, but he wanted to illustrate the growing intensity of the desire for transcendence in a world devoid of faith in the biblical God by means of music. An example of Tippett’s pessimistic-ironic reflection on the “inhumanistic” twentieth century, a time of wars, revolutions and genocide, is the last, vocal-instrumental part of his Symphony No. 3, in which the composer’s text refers, among others, to crimes in the Nazi Auschwitz, while in the musical layer, we hear American popular music (blues). Tippett questioned the optimistic vision of the world from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Schiller’s Ode to Joy praising universal human brotherhood. Tippett also addresses the problem of interpersonal relations in times of racial discrimination and the Cold War in dramatic works: The Knot Garden and The Ice Break. The action of this last opera highlights the conflicts between people living on both sides of the Iron Curtain, belonging to different races and different generations, and the music refers to American musical culture, to the works of Ives, Copland, popular music, blues, and protest songs.

Since the end of the 1970s, Tippett increasingly used the euphonic and lyrical idiom, but he remained interested in existential and social problems. In The Mask of Time, a piece lasting 95 minutes, the composer once again takes up the problem of time in the context of the transience of human life and the duration of a pantheistically understood “universe.” The text is a compilation of works by various authors, and the music includes quotations from his own works, among others (similarly to the Triple Concerto and Piano Sonata No. 4). This postmodernist tendency to combine different stylistic idioms and means of musical expression, as well as the use of modern props, was manifested in his last stage piece, New Year, which has the character of a musical. Tippett introduced two pairs of characters here: contemporary people, coming from a specific place on Earth (somewhere – today), and people “from nowhere,” belonging to the future (nowhere – tomorrow), and in the finale we hear a story about “universal unity and brotherhood.” To contrast the two worlds sonically, Tippett used the aggressive idiom of rock and rap music and the subtle sounds of electronic instruments. Tippett’s fifth opera, New Year (commissioned jointly by Houston Grand Opera, Glyndebourne and the BBC), was premiered in the US in 1989 (in Houston, Texas); it was given multiple performances in the UK the following year (at the Glyndebourne Festival); the BBC presented its own television production in 1991. At almost 90, Tippett composed the cantata Byzantium to Yeats’s poem, String Quartet No. 5 and The Rose Lake, a song without words for orchestra. These works are Tippett’s “swan song” of peace, simplicity and lyrical contemplation, a farewell to the world of music. In both his musical compositions and his published texts, Tippett sought answers to the most fundamental questions about human existence, our relationship to time, and our place in both the known world and the “mysterious universe.” In 2020, the Royal Musical Association inaugurated its annual Tippett Medal for Composition.

Literature:

books:

Michael Tippett. A Symposium on his Sixtieth Birthday, ed. I. Kemp, London 1965; M. A. Scheppach The operas of Michael Tippett in the light of twentieth-century opera aesthetics, doctoral thesis, University of Rochester, 1975; A Man of our Time. Michael Tippett, London 1977 (catalogue of an exhibition); M. Hurd Tippett, London 1978; E.W. White Tippett and his Operas, London 1979, 2^nd ed. 1981; D. Matthews Michael Tippett. An Introductory Study, London 1980; “Composer” no. 70, 1980 (special issue); M. Bowen Michael Tippett, London 1982, 2^nd ed. 1997; B. J. Vaughn The hope of reconciliation: a stylistic characteristic of Sir Michael Tippett culminating in ‘The ice break’, doctoral thesis, Ohio State University, 1982; A. Whittall The Music of Britten and Tippett. Studies in Themes and Techniques, Cambridge 1982, 2^nd ed. 1991; I. Kemp Tippett. The Composer and his Music, London 1984, Oxford 2^nd ed. 1987; The Operas of Michael Tippett, ed. N. John, London 1985, 2^nd ed., 2011; Michael Tippett. A Celebration, commemorative book, ed. G. Lewis, Tunbridge Wells (Kent) 1985; D. Clarke Language, Form, and Structure in the Music of Michael Tippett, 2 volumes, London 1989; G. Theil Michael Tippett. A Biobibliography, New York 1989; M.A. Scheppach Dramatic Parallels in Michael Tippett’s Operas. Analytical Essays on the Musico-dramatic Techniques, New York 1990; A. Fisher Die Bühnenwerke Michael Tippetts, Berlin 1992; R.E. Jones The Early Operas of Michael Tippett, Lewiston (New York) 1996; M. L. Paoli Les musiques imaginaires de Michael Tippett: Dès figures mélopoétiques à l’oeuvre musicale, doctoral thesis, Université de Bordeaux, 1997; Tippett. Studies, ed. D. Clarke, Cambridge 1999, 2^nd ed. 2006; K. Gloag Tippett. A Child of our Time, Cambridge 1999; D. Clarke The Music and Thought of Michael Tippett. Modern Times and Metaphysics, Cambridge 2001; Michael Tippett. Music and Literature, ed. S. Robinson, London 2002; The Cambridge companion to Michael Tippett, ed. K. Gloag, N. Jones, 2013; Th. Schuttenhelm The Orchestral Music of Michael Tippett: Creative Development and the Compositional Process, Cambridge 2014; Th. Schuttenhelm Michael Tippett’s Fifth Spring Quartet. A Study in Vision and Revision, London 2017; O. Soden Michael Tippett: The biography, London 2019

articles:

N.G. Long “A Child of our Time”. A Critical Analysis of Michael Tippett’s Oratorio, “The Music Review” VIII, 1947; A. Milner Rhythmic Techniques in the Music of Michael Tippett, “The Musical Times” XCV, 1954; C. Mason Tippett’s Piano Concerto, “The Score” 1956 no. 16; N.T. Atkinson Michael Tippett’s Debt to the Past, “The Music Review” XXIII, 1962; M. Schafer Michael Tippett, in: British Composers in Interview, London 1963; J. Warrack The Knot Garden, “The Musical Times” CXI, 1970; B. Northcott Tippett’s Third Symphony, “Music and Musicians” XX, 1972; D. Cairns Michael Tippett. The Midsummer Marriage, in: Responses. Musical Essays and Reviews, London 1973; J. Clapham Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Orchestra, “Welsh Music” V, 1977; S. Wanamaker Preparing for “The Ice Break,” “Opera” XXVIII, 1977; R. Rodda Genesis of a Symphony. Tippett’s Symphony No. 3, “The Music Review” XXXIX, 1978; I. Kemp Rhythm in Tippett’s early music, “Proceeeding of the Royal Musical Association” (105), 1978; F. W. Sternfeld, D. Harvey A musical magpie: Words and music in Michael Tippett’s opera, “Parnassus: Poetry in review” II, 1982; T. Rimer ‘King Priam’ Michael Tippett, “The Opera Quartely” II 1983; P. Dennison Reminiscence and Recomposition in Tippett, “The Musical Times” CXXVI, 1985; D. Puffett The Fugue from Tippett’s Second String Quartet, “Music Analysis” V, 1986; M. Bowen Britten and Tippett: Die Erneuerung in der englischen Musik, “Österreichische Musikzeitschrift” 41 (3–4), 1986; J. Loskill Psycho-Schocker in Gelsenkirchen: Deutsche Erstaufführung von Michael Tippetts Der Irrgarten, “Das Orchester” V, 1987; B. Docherty Sentence into cadence: The word-setting of Tippett and Britten, “Tempo” (166), 1988; G. Lewis Behind Trippett’s mask, “The Musical Times” CXXIX, 1988; B. Docherty Syllogism and Symbol. Britten, Tippett and English Text, “Contemporary Music Review” V, 1989; G. Lewis “New Year” in the New World, “The Musical Times” CXXXI, 1989; A. Whittall Resisting Tonality. Tippett, Beethoven and the Sarabande, “Music Analysis” IX, 1990; S. Robinson An opera of ‘depth’: Tippett’s ‘The midsummer marriage’, M. Lodge Sir Michael Tippett in New Zealand, “Music in New Zealand” (9) 1990; S. Robinson The midsummer marriage in New Year: A comparison of Tippett’s first and last operas, “Musicology Australia” (14) 1991; M. Bowen Tippett’s ‘Byzantium’, “The Musical Times” CXXXII, 1991; The Schulz Ein Kind unserer Zeit: Der englische Komponist Michael Tippett, “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik” VII/VIII, 1991; S. Robinson Ritual in Tippett’s King Priam, “Context”, 1991; P. Hill Tippett’s Fifth String Quartet, “Tempo” (182), 1992; J. Poland Michael Tippett’s A child of our time: An oratorio for our time, “Choral journal” VII, 1994; D. Clarke Tippett. In and Out of “Those Twentieth Century Blues” the Context and Significance of an Authobiography and A. Whittall “Byzantium”. Tippett, Yeats and the Limitations of Affinity, “Music and Letters” LXXIV, 1993; R. Fanselau Michael Tippetts 3 Symphonie (1970–72): Botschraft der Humanität, in: P. Becker, A. Edler, B. Schneider Zwischen Wissenschaft und Kunst: Festgabe für Richard Jakoby, Mainz 1995; D. Clarke Visionary Images. Tippett’s Transcendential Aspirations and D. Puffett Tippett and the Retreat from Mythology, “The Musical Times” CXXXVI, 1995; D. Clarke The Significance of the Concept “Image” in Tippett’s Musical Thought: a Perspective from Jung, “Journal of the Royal Musical Association” I, 1996; R. Fanselau Michael Tippett: Ein Kind unserer Zeit?, in: K.-J. Kemmelmeyer (ed.), Blickpunkt Musikpädagogik: Fünf Vorlesungen zu zentralen Fragen der Musikpädagogik, Hannover 1997; H. T. Wohlfahrt Den Glauben an die Menschheit nicht verloren…: Zum Tod von Sir Michael Tippett—Nachruf, “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik” II, 1998; H. Schmidt Rätselstunde für Fortgeschrittene: The Midsummer Marriage von Michael Tippett an der Bayerischen Staatsoper München, “Das Orchester: Zeitschrift für Orchesterkultur und Rundfunk-Chorwesen” VI, 1998; J. L. Paulk Michael Tippett remembered, “The new music connoisseur:” I, 1998; Ch. Brüstle Michael Tippetts Oratorium A child of our time: Zur Rezeption eines ‘zeitgemäßen’ Werken in Deutschland, in: H. Danuser, T. Plebuch (ed.), Musik als Text. Kassel 1998; D. Clarke ‘Only half rebelling’: Tonal strategies, folksong, and ‘Englishness’ in Tippett’s concerto for double string orchestra, D. Clarke Tippett’s King Priam and ‘the tragic vision, K. Gloag Tippett’s second symphony, Stravinsky, and the language of neoclassicism: Towards a critical framework, A. Pople From pastiche to free composition: R.O. Morris, Tippett, and the development of pitch resources in the Fantasia concertante on a theme of Corelli, A. Pople From pastiche to free composition: R.O. Morris, Tippett, and the development of pitch resources in the Fantasia concertante on a theme of Corelli, Ch. Mark Tippett, sequence, and metaphor, W. Mellers Tippett at the millennium: A personal memoir, A. Borthwick Tonal elements and their significance in Tippett’s sonata no. 3 for piano, S. Collisson, ‘Significant gestures to the past’: formal processes and visionary moments in Tippett’s Triple Concerto, P.A. Wright Decline or renewal in late Tippett? The fifth string quartet in perspective, in: “Tippett studies” ed. D. Clarke, Cambridge 1999; S. Robinson The pattern from the palimpsest: Convergences of Eliot, Tippett, and Shakespeare, in: J. X. Cooper (ed.), T.S. Eliot’s orchestra: Critical essays on poetry and music, New York – London 2000; D. Clarke The meaning of ‘lateness’: Mediations of work, self and society in Tippett’s Triple concerto, “Journal of the Royal Musical Association” I, 2000; S. Robinson Love and loss, homosexuality and pacifism in Tippett’s song cycle The heart’s assurance (1950–51), “Context: A journal of music research” (22) 2001; M. Saremba The reception of British music in Germany: The case of Sir Michael Tippett, S. Cole ‘Musical trail-blazing and general daring’: Michael Tippett, Morley College and early music, B. Docherty The heart’s assurance: Tippett’s War requiem?, A. Whittall Transcending song: Tippett’s play with genre in vocal composition, L. Foreman Forging a relationship and a role: Michael Tippett and the BBC, 1928–51, in: S. Robinson (ed.), Michael Tippett: Music and Literature, London 2002; M. Bowen Michael Tippett’s ‘King Priam’: Genesis, Achievement and Interpretation, meirion-bowen.com (2003); D. Beard Britten’s ambiguities; Tippett’s times; Metzer’s borrowings, “Journal of the Royal Musical Association” II, 2004; R. Braunmüller, J. Schläder, H. Krellmann, Eine moderne Zauberflöte? Tippetts Oper The midsummer marriage und ihr Vorbild and R. E. Jones, K. Lehmann Turbulente Konflikte Glücksmomente: Michael Tippetts Oper The midsummer marriage, in: H. Krellmann, J. Schläder (ed.), ‘Theater ist ein Traumort’: Opern des 20. Jahrhunderts von Janáček bis Widmann, Leipzig 2005; A. Marshman Pre emptive hermeneutics: Tippett’s early influence on A child of our time’s reception, “Context: A journal of music research” (29–30), 2005; Ch. Brüstle Werke im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Michael Tippett — A child of our time, in: A. Riethmüller (ed.), Geschichte der Musik im 20. Jahrhundert: 1925– 1945, Regensburg 2006; R. Böhm “The darkness declares the glory of light”: Michael Tippetts Oratorium A child of our time, “Musikerziehung” (59), 2006; I. Stannard ‘Arrest and movement’: Tippett’s second piano sonata and the genesis of a method, “Twentieth-century music” II, 2007; R. Savage On truth and semblance in an operatic and extra-operatic sense: Michael Tippett’s The midsummer marriage, “The Opera Quarterly” III/IV, 2009; I. Stannard Hermaphrodism and the masculine body: Tippett’s aesthetic views in a gendered context, in: K. Gibson, I. Biddle (ed.), Masculinity and Western musical practice, London 2009; D.A. McConnell ‘I would know my shadow and my light’: An examination of Sir Michael Tippett’s A child of our time, “Choral journal” IV, 2010; Ch. Brüstle Hell, dunkel, mnnlich, weiblich: ‘So shall I at last be whole’: Musik und Homosexualitt bei Michael Tippett, in: R. Grotjahn, C. Bartsch, M. Unseld (ed.), Felsensprengerin, Brückenbauerin, Wegbereiterin: Die Komponistin Ethel Smyth/Rock blaster, bridge builder, road paver: The composer Ethel Smyth, Munich 2010; A. Gilbert Sir Michael Tippett: The Manchester connection, “Manchester sounds” 9, 2011; D. Clarke Between hermeneutics and formalism: The Lento from Tippett’s Concerto for orchestra, or, Music analysis after Lawrence Kramer, “Music Analysis” II/III, 2011; D. Marks Tippett’s domestic epic, “Opera” V, 2012; J.-Ph. Heberlé, P. Degott, P. Dubois L’héritage händélien et Michael Tippett: Georg Friedrich Händel, modèle et contre-modèle, “Musicorum” (14), 2013; O. Soden Tippett and Eliot, “Tempo” 67, 2013; K. Gloag Tippett’s operatic world: From The midsummer marriage to New year, E. Venn ‘Symphonic music in our modern times’: Tippett and the symphony, I. Stannard Tippett’s ‘great divide’: Before and after King Priam, Th. Schuttenhelm Between image and imagination: Tippett’s creative process, N. Jones Formal archetypes, revered masters and singing nightingales: Tippett’s string quartets, J. L. Bullivant Tippett and politics: The 1930s and beyond, S. Cole ‘Things that chiefly interest ME’: Tippett and early music, Ch. Mark Tippett and the English traditions, A. Whittall Tippett and twentieth-century polarities, K. Gloag Tippett and the concerto: From double to triple, A. Borthwick The four piano sonatas: past and present tension, Th. Schuttenhelm Between image and imagination: Tippett’s creative process, S. Robinson ‘Coming out to oneself’: encodings of homosexual identity from the First String Quartet to The Heart’s Assurance, in: The Cambridge companion to Michael Tippett, ed. K. Gloag, N. Jones, Cambridge 2013; O. Soden The clarion airs of Michael Tippett and Christopher Fry, “The Musical Quarterly” IV, 2014; T. Young Metaphysics and heavy breathing, (or, Tippett’s fourth symphony), “Tempo” 70, 2016; P. Mead Tippett’s fourth piano sonata, “Tempo” 71, 2017; P. M. Davies Michael Tippett: A tribute, in: Peter Maxwell Davies: Selected writings, ed. Nicolas Jones, Cambridge 2017; N. Haralambous A trojan horse deconstructed: Structural procedures in Michael Tippett’s second piano sonata, “British music” II, 2018; M. Bowen Totally Tippett, “The Musical Times” CLIX, 2018; D. P. Gilgan Reflections of a broken love in Michael Tippett’s A child of our time (1941), “British music” II, 2019; A. Whittall Michael Tippett and the model musical citizen, and Tippett and twentieth-century polarities, in: British music after Britten, Woodbridge (Suffolk, UK), 2020; I. Hewett Between Englishness and modernism: The critical reception of Tippett’s operas, “Journal of music criticism”, 2020; O. Soden Tippett, Eliot and Madame Sosostris, in: Delia da Sousa Correa (ed.), The Edinburgh companion to literature and music, Edinburgh 2020; H.W. Heister Karl Amadeus Hartmann und Michael Tippett: Zwei Fallbeispiele für Friedensmusiken zwischen 1933 und 1945, “Musik und Kirche” VI, 2021.