-- good enough reason as any!

Michael Tippett was of course one of the English homo-sexualist school; the most prominent member thereof was Benjamin Britten, but there were and are many more of the same kidney. We have always thought it queer that there are no first- or even third-raters among them! The most likely explanation is that they were all too self-conscious and could not for that reason "let themselves go"--this character-defect of theirs, for that is what it is (their self-consciousness we mean, not their homo-sexualism), means that their works lack true passion. But passion is the essence of music; music is not truly music unless it is straightforwardly and sincerely passionate would not Members say?

The closest Tippett comes to a passionate piece is his Child of Our Time, mentioned in passing and may we say somewhat disparagingly in a message above. It is his best work after all! Indeed he himself described it as a Passion; but not of a God-man, rather of a man whose God has left the Light of the Heavens for the Dark of the "collective unconscious." (This recalls the origin of mythology and polytheism in an involuntary irresistible but necessary process within consciousness.) Well! We hear a faint echo of Bach's sublime Passions (although the formal structure of the work was modelled upon that of the Messiah), but it is disfigured beyond redemption through its use of five slave songs. Among the many examples of failure of judgement in English music this is one of the worst! Delius too had in the nineties an "interest" of this kind, and produced during that period his own least worthwhile works, but fortunately he unlike Tippett grew out of the craze. Mahler was the same was he not with his vulgar Viennese ditties.

Our own recording of A Child of Our Time is conducted by Andreas Priwin, and that seems about right. But its cover photograph of seventeen-year-old Herschel Grynspan is so affecting and haunting that we can hardly bear to look at it:


But looking at it perhaps helps us to comprehend Tippett's genuine passion rather better than does his music, even.

That particular clarity of implication escaped me. I took SCGrew's meaning to be that the repressive social conditions under which these "homosexualists" plied their trade (as composers) had conditioned this perceived "self-consciousness".

If I may for a moment speak in my capacity as a homosexualist, I think I'll risk the generalisation that it is difficult not to be self-conscious about such a condition even if you were born, as I was, a good twenty-two years after the Wolfenden Report moved for the legalisation of homosexual behaviour between consenting males in private.

Mr Grew, I believe, lived through those times, or shortly after, while Michael Tippett was already not merely a practising homosexualist but quite an accomplished one by 1957. Nonetheless I think it would be hard to make the case that an English homosexualist of Sir Michael's generation was not almost inevitably self-conscious.

Mr Grew is I presume aware of the (it seems not entirely well-founded or wholly substantiated) rumour that Herschel Grynspan and the man he shot Ernst vom Rath were in fact secret lovers.

Did Mr Grew ever have a liaison with a second-rate composer and first-rate homosexualist we wonder? We ourselves generally prefer not to mix business with pleasure, and have found that composers above the fourth or fifth rate are generally best not 'liaised with' (if Members will pardon the not entirely Biblical expression).

Meanwhile, back to Tippett's music: 2 pieces I really like, although I'm not sure whether you could call them typical Tippett, are the 2nd piano sonata and the 4th quartet. I heard the Lindsays recording of the 4th quartet on R3 when it came out in the late 80s and was so impressed with it that I bought it - an ASV disc together with Britten 3. When the Lindsays recorded the 5th quartet a few years later, I got hold of that as well and was initially disappointed. However, after listening to it several times with the score (which Birmingham libraries kindly got for me), it suddenly clicked for me, so I'd recommend that as well.

Well, I know several gay composers as well as several non-gay ones who think so, for what it's worth.

I'm not so sure myself, but I think it's a question worth considering. And actually, I do think Tippett's music, for whatever reason, displays symptoms of a gap between expression and conviction.

There's a very interesting chapter (on the Triple Concerto and other works of that period) in David Clarke's excellent book on Tippett which considers the possible influence of his homosexuality on his music.

Andy, you're the only person I know who likes the 4th quartet. It's almost universally regarded as one of Tippett's worst pieces!

Hm. That would imply that there's some way of knowing whether a composer is or is not gay (or maybe hasn't, er, come down definitively on one side or the other) just by listening to their music (as opposed, say, to the kind of texts they set or the kind of "extra-musical subject matter" their music might refer to). If the only music Tippett had written was his instrumental work, I don't think there would be much to go on, same with anyone else one cares to name in my opinion. Convincing counterexamples would be welcome!