Win Michael Tippett: The Biography Edited By Oliver Soden Presented In Ebook

have always been a fan of Michael Tippetts music, Indeed, the wonderful English music written in the first fifty years of the twentieth century I have always considered to be my musical home apart from rock and blues.
I saw that this biography had been published and thought Michael Tippett theres a blast from the past, Nobody plays his music any more, Except for the exceptional arrangements of the Negro Spirituals from Child of our Time,
It being a time of pestilence, and ones social life a casualty, I have been reading a lot so a thumping great biography of somepages was not as daunting a prospect as it might normally have been.
Indeed, it was this or another crack at War and Peace, Im glad I went for this, And it was available on Kindle, at a very reasonable price, which I preferred so as not to aggravate my sore wrists with holding a tome,
But what on earth made me think it good for reading in bed Because I found it to be so, And not because it is a soporific, I came to look forward to my nightly sojourn with Soden and Tippett more than anything else I have read over the past six months, Soden has a style so light and yet informative that half an hour with the two of them last thing at night has been a habit, formed over several months, from which I am even now experiencing withdrawal.

I am not a music specialist, but it seems to me that Soden has been diligent almost to a fault with his research for this book and his decisions on what to include.
It was a long and full life, which explains thepp, Soden has, however, done his best to keep matters moving and I think succeeds admirably, partly by grouping photos, lists of the works and other reference matter at the back.
The pages keep turning because Tippetts life was so full of incident and he such a complicated, at times downright difficult, individual,
Its all in here, The triumphs, the lack of money, the rows with friends, the bad reviews, the excitement at a new piece his lack of selfdiscipline juxtaposed with how driven he became when a new musical idea came to him, how he worried at it, sometimes for years, before it saw the light of day.
Also in here is what he thought about his own music and about the music of others notably, of course, Benjamin Britten, Soden also considers how other contemporary and later composers were influenced by Tippett from which it is clear that if Tippett hadnt existed, we would have needed to invent him.

Tippetts correspondence was copious, What will biographers do in the future, when only txtspk emails glimmering dully in the ether will remain to be mined for this kind of precious material And Soden sets the life alongside the extraordinary events which shaped it: two world wars, the Space Race, the gradual acceptance of homosexuality, the Summer of Love, the Winter of Discontent the twentieth century was certainly eventful.

Even if you dont like the music, Tippetts life is a fascinating microcosm of those coteries of clever, gay, artistic men who, beforeand even thereafter, had perforce to express themselves in metaphor so as to avoid the attention of the authorities.

Tippett love or loath his music remains one of the most colourful characters of the twentieth century, Ardently pacifist and at a time when such things were illegal an advocate of gay rights, I really enjoyed his own autobiography moving into Aquarius but this book is both scholarly and far more extensive, It paints a fascinating picture as much of the times he lived as much as the man and his music, Highly recommended to anyone with more than a passing interest in the composer,APRrecommendation through Dear Bettie, Many Thanks.

Listen here sitelink bbc. co. uk/programmes/m

sitelink bbc. co. uk/programmes/m

Description: The music of the British composer Michael Tippett including the oratorio A Child of Our Time, five operas, and four symphonies is among the most visionary of theth Century, but little has been written about his extraordinary life.
In this new, first complete biography, arts writer and broadcaster Oliver Soden weaves a centuryspanning narrative of epic scope and insight,

Soden has been given unprecedented access to unpublished letters and manuscripts, and has recorded interviews with Tippetts friends and colleagues, He paints a portrait of a powerful intellect and infectious personality

charming, with a consuming interest in other people, stubborn and great fun,

But he also uncovers the sorrows and secrets that Tippett stowed away beneath his cheerfulness, not least the darker reaches of some tempestuous and often tragic love affairs that sometimes blurred the lines between the professional and the personal.


Tippetts was a long, exciting life and woven through it all is his amazing, varied music, as beautiful as it is challenging, and the eclectic supporting cast of his friends, colleagues and lovers.
His was truly a life of theth Century but one that can also shine a light on thest,

The first episode begins with Tippetts childhood, The composer was born into the decade before the First World War, his early years spent in the peace and tranquillity of a Suffolk village, But the British Empire was fading, and the culture and philosophy of Victorian Britain were fast being abandoned in a rush of change and social unrest,

Abridged by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Pippa Vaughan
Read by Oliver Soden featuring Derek Jacobi and Ivor Minchin Berry
A Loftus production for BBC RadioExhaustively researched, but exhausting From BBC RadioBook of the week:
The music of the British composer Michael Tippett including the oratorio A Child of Our Time, five operas, and four symphonies is among the most visionary of theth Century, but little has been written about his extraordinary life.
In this new, first complete biography, arts writer and broadcaster Oliver Soden weaves a centuryspanning narrative of epic scope and insight,

Soden has been given unprecedented access to unpublished letters and manuscripts, and has recorded interviews with Tippetts friends and colleagues, He paints a portrait of a powerful intellect and infectious personality charming, with a consuming interest in other people, stubborn and great fun,

But he also uncovers the sorrows and secrets that Tippett stowed away beneath his cheerfulness, not least the darker reaches of some tempestuous and often tragic love affairs that sometimes blurred the lines between the professional and the personal.


Tippetts was a long, exciting life and woven through it all is his amazing, varied music, as beautiful as it is challenging, and the eclectic supporting cast of his friends, colleagues and lovers.
His was truly a life of theth Century but one that can also shine a light on thest,

The first episode begins with Tippetts childhood, The composer was born into the decade before the First World War, his early years spent in the peace and tranquillity of a Suffolk village, But the British Empire was fading, and the culture and philosophy of Victorian Britain were fast being abandoned in a rush of change and social unrest,

Abridged by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Pippa Vaughan
Read by Oliver Soden featuring Derek Jacobi and Ivor Minchin Berry
A Loftus production for BBC Radio

sitelink bbc. co. uk/sounds/play/m .