Tippett on music

the long version

Sir Michael Tippett was born in 1905 and thus celebrates his 90th birthday in 1995. To mark this occasion, Oxford University Press publishes Tippett on Music, a new and up-to-date compilation of his essays drawing on his two published collections Moving into Aquarius and Music of the Angels but also including much new material. Aesthetics, the role of the artist in society, music by other twentieth-century composers, and above all Tippett's own works are the subjects treated in this book. A whole section is devoted to questions of interpretation and performance, and should be especially useful to performers, conductors, and opera directors. Tippett on Music distils the intellectual opinions and artistic experience of an internationally celebrated composer, one whose life-span has stretched through almost the whole of the twentieth century, and whose compositional output has remained consistent and challenging, right into his late eighties. The book ends with a glimpse of what Tippett thinks composers could achieve in the next millenium.