During the 1980s, my wife Beth and I played classical music on cassettes during our long-distance drives. One such cassette contained Edgar's "Serenade for Strings," Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia, and Michael Tippett's "Fantasia Concertante On A Theme Of Corelli." So I was familiar with one, enjoyable piece by Tippett when I read an article about his music in Gramophone magazine (1), not only his instrumental and choral music (A Child of Our Time a notable example of the latter) but also his visionary operas (King Priam, The Ice Break, and others) for which he wrote his own librettos.
A contemporary of Britten, Tippett (1905-1998) seemed a fascinating person: a pacifist who was for a while incarcerated, a homosexual who struggled with his sexuality, a composer who experimented with a variety of styles, and a writer and advocate for musical education. That article in Gramophone referred to his interesting musical evolution and the possibility of calling him a great composer. The Wikipedia article traces his life and discusses the critical estimation of his music since his death.
Posting about interfaith holidays this year, I noticed the importance of the summer solstice for several religions. That prompted me to listen again to my CDs of Tippett's 1955 opera The Midsummer Marriage, the Colin Davis-conducted set from Covent Garden, originally released in 1970.
It's an enjoyable opera, based in part on anima and animus archetypes of Carl Jung, partly on pastoral themes inspired by the solstice, partly T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (itself inspired by fertility myths) and partly upon Mozart's Magic Flute. With these complex relationships, I found the opera intriguing, and also enjoyable to hear. The characters Jack and Bella (I almost wrote "Jack and Diane," LOL) are the opera's Papageno and Papagena, while Jenifer and Mark are this opera's Pamina and Tamino. King Fisher, and the clairvoyant Sosostris derive from Eliot's poem. The story progresses across three acts as complex way as you'd expect from an opera with very spiritual themes, concluding with a dawn wedding amid Midsummer's secrets.
1. Michael Oliver, "Tippett at 80: Images of Reconciliation," Gramophone, vol. 62, no. 741 (February, 1985), 965-966.
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