# SS 21.09.19 - Tippett #2



## Mika (Jul 24, 2009)

A continuation of the Saturday Symphonies Tradition:

Welcome to another weekend of symphonic listening!

For your listening pleasure this weekend:

Michael Tippett (1905 - 1998)


Symphony No. 2 

1. Allegro vigoroso
2. Adagio molto e tranquillo
3. Presto veloce
4. Allegro moderato
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Post what recording you are going to listen to giving details of Orchestra / Conductor / Chorus / Soloists etc - Enjoy!


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## Mika (Jul 24, 2009)

Another weekend is here and another symphony is up for your listening enjoyment.

This weekend it's English composer Michael Tippett's second symphony.

I'll be listening to this one:


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It is a work I like a lot. I have two recordings and am not sure which I will listen to yet. Maybe it will be both Colin Davis and Hickox. I can't find the covers that I have (I bought both quite some time ago) but the performances are available in this format now:


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## cougarjuno (Jul 1, 2012)

I'll listen to the Hickox and Bournemouth


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

Hickox here, too. This is my favourite Tippett work. Thanks, Mika!


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Thanks for posting Mika. I didn't get a chance to get online last night, but funnily enough this was the actually the next one I was going to post so well done being a mind reader as well :lol:

I'll be listening to this one:







Michael Tippett/BBC Symphony Orchestra


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

C. Davis/LSO/Decca


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

This version for me


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

realdealblues said:


> Thanks for posting Mika. I didn't get a chance to get online last night, but funnily enough this was the actually the next one I was going to post so well done being a mind reader as well :lol:
> 
> I'll be listening to this one:
> View attachment 124080
> ...


That's the one I have too. Havent listened to it in yearrrrrrs! Got it as 
a freebie and played it once.


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## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

Bournemouth SO/Hickox for me. I picked this set up about 3 months ago. At around the same time, Tippett's biography appeared in my local library, so I've been reading parts of that as well.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

realdealblues said:


> Thanks for posting Mika. I didn't get a chance to get online last night, but funnily enough this was the actually the next one I was going to post so well done being a mind reader as well :lol:
> 
> I'll be listening to this one:
> View attachment 124080
> ...


Thanks for reminding me of this disc realdealblues, I'll dig it of the box it will located in and give it a spin.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I don't have a recording, so I created a *playlist on YouTube* of the Hickox/Bournemouth recording. Perhaps some will find it handy to use.

Right now I'm listening to the only work by Tippett that I know and like, his _Concerto for Double String Orchestra_.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Just gave this work a first listen.

Warning: I will be writing about it at more than my usual mind-numbing length.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

Tippett is a unique composer among the British. Do you consider Tippett more bitter than Britten?

Tippett, ah yes, a magnificent composer. I've seen some praise toward this composer on the another forum. Looks a most compelling composer, and sure he is, of course! I listened to the Chandos Recording (don't remember the conductor, sorry!)

The charactetistic style of the composer was getting mature. Tonal but pushing its boundaries.

Great selection today!


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

Mika said:


> Another weekend is here and another symphony is up for your listening enjoyment.
> 
> This weekend it's English composer Michael Tippett's second symphony.
> 
> ...


How is it? Is it any good? What are your opinions about it? Please, tell me urgently!!!   :lol:


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> It is a work I like a lot. I have two recordings and am not sure which I will listen to yet. Maybe it will be both Colin Davis and Hickox. I can't find the covers that I have (I bought both quite some time ago) but the performances are available in this format now:
> 
> View attachment 124076
> 
> ...


What did you make of them? Worth listening?


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Just gave this work a first listen.
> 
> Warning: I will be writing about it at more than my usual mind-numbing length.


And what about you, gentle Mr. grouch :devil: ?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Listened to Hickox/Bournemouth. I had hopes for this symphony because I'm quite fond of the composer's much earlier _Concerto for Double String Orchestra_. In that work, ideas - good ideas - seemed to leap into the composer's head at just the right times. Given strong melodic content and captivating rhythms, both in good supply in the _Concerto_, the result was music that surprises and delights.

Sadly, this symphony, written twenty years later, seems more the result of musical manufacture than of inspiration. One reason may be that Tippett's method of writing music had changed. He wrote some time later, "I compose by first developing an overall sense of the length of the work, then of how it will divide itself into sections or movements, then of the kind of texture or instruments or voices that will be performing it. I prefer not to consider the actual notes of the composition until this process ... has gone as far as possible."

That seems like a no-surprises approach to composing. If so, it served its purpose very well in this symphony, for there are certainly no surprises here. For all the brilliance of the orchestration, the obvious care and attention to the finest detail, and even the oft-repeated pounding of those "Vivaldi Cs," musically the symphony is a dreary affair.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Hmmm, played. I'll leave it there. It may be some years till I return to it.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

MusicSybarite said:


> What did you make of them? Worth listening?


Tippett was a one-off. It is not that easy to find influences on him or influences from him. He had his own languages - his music went through several changes in style (each more or less unique to him) - and you can love him or loathe him with or without being enamoured with the other music of his time. The symphony (#2) is a work I like a lot but listening to it as a Saturday Symphony was a slightly different experience because I found myself thinking about how the work would come over to other people, including those who don't know Tippett. There are quite a few passages where I thought that listeners unfamiliar with his idiom could find the music empty but fans might find meaningful and beautiful.

The symphonies are not, anyway, the best introduction to the different phases in Tippett's style and are _*probably *_not his strongest works from any period in his career. I came to the 2nd symphony (for quite a while I didn't greatly like it) via a number of other (and greater, IMO) works like the Piano Concerto and the Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli. In a way the symphony marks the transition between his more lyrical style of The Midsummer Marriage and the spikier style of King Priam so it also helps to know something of this later and less immediately attractive style, works like the Concerto for Orchestra. Unfortunately, the string quartets are not a lot of help here as the first three were from his early/first stylistic period and the 4th and 5th are significantly later works.

Of the recordings I know, the Hickox recording is probably the most reliable - Tippett was not a great conductor of his music and I don't know the Brabbins - but I have an affection for the Colin Davis as well: he had a special understanding of Tippett's idiom at this stage in his development and his recording sounds a little more personal to me. I listened to both.


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## Kiki (Aug 15, 2018)

I'm not familiar with Michael Tippett's music. Having listened to this, one of very few Tippett CDs that I have, his musical style somehow reminds me of Robert Simpson. There are many passages that have got a lot of quick notes played at a constant volume (often soft) with little change in dynamics. The way Robert Simpson did that has always given me a headache. Tippett's second symphony is less hurtful, as it obviously contains a lot more musical materials, and the (lack of) dynamic changes is not nearly as bad. At the end of the day, it's not love at first sight for me. If I'd ever like it, it would have to be an acquired taste. Try again later perhaps.


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## cyberstudio (Mar 31, 2019)

The 2nd is as classical as you can get. Despite the thick harmonic density the tonal structure of the sonata form is as crystal clear as you can get. It is in the same vein as Prokofiev's 1st ('Classical') and both are derived from/tribute to Haydn. The pounding rhythm and relentless vitality appeal to the public at large, even those who might otherwise find avant garde music repulsive. The thing which left me awestruck and made me love this piece is how there is something for everyone, from the 18th to the 20th century, from classical to pop music, and yet everything holds together as a single, unified vision, with the elegance of simplicity. Such is the art of Tippett. Could this be the last great classical symphony?


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