Response to fascism retains its urgency
A Child of Our Time Brighton Festival
Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time is a piece for our times. Conceived in 1939 in response to the rise of fascism, it has lost nothing of its urgency, and made a powerful statement at the close of this year’s Brighton Festival, under the guest directorship of Rokia Traoré. The story of Herschel Grynszpan, the 17-year-old Polish Jew who shot a Nazi official in revenge for his family’s persecution, continues to resonate, and Tippett’s music has not dated.
Tippett drew his formal scheme from the three parts of Handel’s Messiah, nodding to the use of chorales in Bach’s
Passions in his brilliant appropriation of African-american spirituals. These settings ought to be the highlight of any performance of A Child of Our
Time, and they made their impact here thanks to the full-voiced singing of the Brighton Festival Chorus. Gwenethann Rand, the soprano soloist, wove a bluesy line into these textures, and Roderick Cox, conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, shaped them with urgency and tension.
If Rand’s solos were the most moving, Ronnita Miller was impressive in the clarion power of her alto numbers. The tenor Noah Stewart may have been too solemn in “I have no money for my bread”, where something more sardonic is called for, but his strong presence contrasted with the general woolliness of the bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu. Everyone was moving, though, in the conciliatory message of the “Deep river” finale.
A contrastingly underpowered performance of Beethoven’s Triple
Concerto opened this concert: a missed opportunity since the German composer was Tippett’s musical idol.