The Orchestral Music of Michael Tippett

With extracts from the composer’s letters, writings, interviews and broadcasts, and supported by evidence from his sketchbooks and manuscripts, The Orchestral Music of Michael Tippett explores Tippett’s intentions and argues that the experiences that triggered his creative impulses are integral to understanding his music. In his discussion of Tippett’s creative process, Thomas Schuttenhelm attempts to recapture the circumstances under which Tippett’s orchestral works were created, to document how his visionary aspirations were developed and sustained throughout the creative cycle, and to chart how conception was transmuted from idea through to performance. Analysing Tippett’s orchestral works throughout his long career, from the Symphonic Movement of 1931 to his final masterpiece The Rose Lake in 1991–3, Schuttenhelm explores each work in detail to provide a comprehensive commentary on one of the most influential British composers of the twentieth century.

Author Biography

A composer, guitarist and scholar, Dr Thomas Schuttenhelm is on the faculty at the Hartt School (University of Hartford) and Central Connecticut State University. He was a UK Fulbright Fellow and a British Music Studies Fellow (The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin). He has lectured at Yale University, Connecticut, Cardiff University, the University of Newcastle, the University of Sussex, the University of London and the Mannheim Hochschule für Musik. He was the editor of The Selected Letters of Michael Tippett and is a contributing author to The Cambridge Companion to Michael Tippett. In addition to performing and promoting Tippett’s music, he has contributed to numerous BBC broadcasts and continues to play an important role in the creation, performance and scholarship of contemporary music.