SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Tippett, Piano Concerto, ‘A Child of Our Time’: Lang Lang (piano), Indra Thomas (soprano), Mihoko Fujimura (alto), Steve Davislim (tenor), Matthew Rose (bass), London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis (conductor) Barbican Hall, London 16.12.2007 (JPr)


For several years now, I have been immersed in the lives and music of Wagner and Mahler among other great German and Austrian composers and never really found their satisfactory British equivalent. Purcell, too early for me; Gilbert and Sullivan, oh dear me, no! I am sure there is much that is admirable in the output of Elgar, Delius, Vaughan Williams and Britten, but I had never found their best work matching music composed in Germany, Russia or Finland for example.

Then I discovered Michael Tippett’s oratorio ‘A Child of Our Time’ (1944). Tippett - across all his music - still divides opinion and in the very week of his centenary in 1998 a London broadsheet paper attacked him as one of history's most overrated artists. ‘A Child of Our Time’ brought Tippett fame however and is a powerful work : and if only for this alone (though of course also probably for A Midsummer Marriage dating from 1955) Tippett deserves to be considered an important composer.

This performance was part of the London Symphony Orchestra’s Belief season. What did Tippett believe? Well,  he was an interesting character who amongst other things was a Jungian and a passionately anti-Stalinist British Marxist with a great interest in American jazz and blues music. The inspiration for ‘A Child of Our Time’ came from the assassination in 1938 of a German official by a 17-year-old Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan. The Nazis used this as a pretext for the brutal Central European pogrom known as Kristallnacht later that year. At the suggestion of his friend TS Eliot, Tippett fashioned his own libretto for an oratorio, on which he worked during the years 1939 to 1941. It was first performed in March 1944 and was immediately recognised as one of the most significant compositions to have come out of WWII. As a supporter of Trotsky, it was clear to Tippett how Stalinism had betrayed the working class in Germany, Spain and China and it is likely that he had read Trotsky's article ‘For Grynszpan’, where the Russian leader makes a powerfully emotional statement about the blind alley of individual acts of violence.

Tippett always felt that he knew the secret of ‘A Child of Our Time’.  In one of his last interviews he commented how ‘It is direct. It touches people. I always wanted it to go beyond the problems in Germany, and prophetically it has. It has entered the repertory of choirs all over the world and has become my most successful piece of music because it is a direct communication.’

Some critics have found it an uneven work, so redolent of Tippett's eclectic style that it can seem patchy. Yet however much the choral writing particularly, may be thought of as chunky and conservative, somehow  the composer's emotional intensity comes through. Tippett’s autobiography tells us of his knowledge of Wagner and his music but I was pushed back in my seat by chords straight out of the Ring : from this very opening we are taken back to those dark days that brought forth the most destructive conflict in our history.  What a curious juxtaposition – or perhaps not? Tippett's text is complex and his music quite challenging. He employs his own interpretation of counterpoint to create a tension that never resolves itself and is quite painful to those used to more traditional forms. One of several stylistic innovations in this oratorio was the decision to intersperse American spirituals in the music. These represented the opportunity to strengthen the collective will of the persecuted as well as echoing the language of mediation to connect individuals of opposing societies. We first hear one after the Tenor sings a Spanish lament, bringing an echo of the Spanish civil war:

I have no money for my bread; I have no gift for my love.
I am caught between my desires and their frustration
as between the hammer and the anvil.
How can I grow to a man's stature?

After this  everyone joins in a setting of ‘Steal Away’, and the Child of Our Time appears: ‘Behold the man! The scapegoat! The child of our time.’

But the piece ends with a hopeful synthesis, where in the womb of time there is the hope of a brighter future, and the chorus and soloists sum this up by singing the anti-slavery struggle spiritual ‘Deep River’. One of the highlights of this concert was the London Symphony Chorus's singing of these spirituals. The ghost of Paul Robeson seemed to hover over them as they drove the songs at the audience, appositely heartfelt, powerful and demanding, while being truly spiritual. Only the most hard-hearted could remain unmoved because the message here has universal significance; it is a strong social statement of fundamental importance, especially in the post-9/11 age. Although the historical setting is Nazi Europe during WWII, the message extends to all times and places where human beings persecute and oppress one another.

On this occasion, a sombre pre-Christmas evening in London, the dramatic intensity of this far-from-festive piece, with its resonant demand for justice, found an audience more than willing to hear and respond to a very fine performance. In their own ways a veritable United Nations of soloists were very good; there was a British bass, Matthew Rose, an Australian tenor, Steve Davislim, an American soprano Indra Thomas and a Japanese alto, Mihoko Fujimura. Not a vocally disappointing moment anywhere. My only reflections were that a little more restraint in dress and stage presence would have benefited Ms Thomas. She was in vivid red and sparkling (just like Lang Lang see below) and it was not entirely appropriate, whilst Ms Fujimura’s diction (‘Durr’ for ‘The’ for instance) was not perfect. The former will not be experienced on the forthcoming recording, the latter undoubtedly will.

This marvellous experience more than made up for a disappointing first half which was also from Tippett, his 1955 Piano Concerto. The year is significant as it was influenced by The Midsummer Marriage, the opera that he was working on at the time. It is lyrical and melodic, but yet again very contrapuntal. Tippett was not much of a pianist and gets a surprising amount out of the instrument given this fact. Beethoven was one of Tippett’s gods and the model for this work was the Fourth Piano Concerto which Tippett had conducted himself with Myra Hess as soloist. He had also heard Louis Kentner play the Beethoven and was inspired to write his own concerto for Kentner to play. Tippett emphasises the piano’s capacity to sing and be lyrical - the opening of the concerto is particularly enchanting – and this is certainly the world of The Midsummer Marriage. The fact that this concerto is not better known is due to the complexities of the solo and orchestral writing (and the demands on rehearsal time.) The slow movement is richly expressive and if the first two movements sing; then the finale dances and is a further tribute to Beethoven but with a strong jazz influence, uninhibited outbursts and a duet with the celesta.

One of the concertos strongest advocates,  Lang Lang was on hand to play the concerto once again with the LSO under Colin Davis - so why did he concentrate on the score in front of him so much that he appeared to be sight-reading?  This young pianist is seemingly one of the world’s greatest virtuosi but seems believe his own publicity a bit too much. Was the sparkly jacket really necessary? That and his showy musicianship reeked of Liberace so that  all we missed was the candelabra!

The most significant influence on the success of the first half of the programme (as it  was for the oratorio that followed) was the assured conducting of Sir Colin Davis who has a very close identification with Tippett’s music.  Now in his  81^st yearm Sir Colin is the oldest of the three veterans I have recently seen conducting (Haitink and Rozhdestvensky were the others). Yet through sheer joie de vivre on the platform and the propulsion and exhilaration that  he brought to this music he conducted, he seemed to be a teenager by comparison. Davis is of course also a Wagnerian and this perhaps explains why he brought out the influence of this composer on Tippett much more clearly  than I had experienced before -  including the Wagnerian horn calls in the Part III Scena. Taken together, all this  explains perhaps, why Tippett's music means more to me than that by some other British composers.

Jim Pritchard