A time for Tippett
After a period of neglect and even disparagement following his death 20 years ago, it is heartening to see the music of Sir Michael Tippett finally making a comeback – not least through the superb cycle of symphonies performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra recently. Indeed, I picked up my copy of BBC Music Magazine with its apposite Composer of the Month feature and pertinent cover question (‘The unsung genius of English music?’) on my way to hear the ‘lost’ Symphony in B flat in Glasgow in February. What we got was a remarkable glimpse into the early, Sibelius-influenced Tippett, full of gorgeously layered string writing and those bursts of unpredictable energy that came to characterise the different styles he inhabited throughout his compositional career. There is so much more to Tippett than A Child of Our Time and the earlier, lyrical works. Let us hope this is the beginning of an overdue rediscovery. Simon Barrow, Edinburgh