Michael Tippett: A Child of Our Time

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Its greatest glory is perhaps the powerfully galvanised singing of the well-focused BBC Symphony Chorus – a broad spectrum of visceral expression across a huge dynamic range with every word... — Gramophone Magazine, May 2024 More…

Release Date: 3rd May 2024
Catalogue No: CHSA5341
Label: Chandos
Length: 63 minutes

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Tippett: A Child of our Time, Part I

Work length22:22

$9.45

$11.70

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BBC Symphony Chorus, Sarah Connolly, Ashley Riches, Joshua Stewart, Pumeza Matshikiza, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis

The world turns on its dark side (Chorus)

Track length3:38

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The Argument. Man has measured the heavens with a telescope (Alto)

Track length2:03

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Interludium

Track length0:55

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Is evil then good? (Alto, Chorus)

Track length2:56

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The Narrator. Now in each nation there were some cast out... (Bass)

Track length1:04

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Chorus of the Oppressed. When shall the usurer's city cease? (Chorus)

Track length2:27

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I have no money for my bread (Tenor)

Track length3:33

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How can I cherish my man in such days...? (Soprano)

Track length3:15

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A Spiritual. Steal away (Soprano, Tenor, Chorus)

Track length2:31

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Tippett: A Child of our Time, Part II

Work length20:51

$17.85

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$27.20

Pumeza Matshikiza, BBC Symphony Chorus, Ashley Riches, Sarah Connolly, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Joshua Stewart, Sir Andrew Davis

A star rises in mid-winter (Chorus)

Track length2:42

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The Narrator. And a time came... (Bass)

Track length0:18

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Double Chorus of Persecutors and Persecuted. Away with them! (Chorus)

Track length1:02

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The Narrator. Where they could, they fled from the terror (Bass)

Track length0:24

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Chorus of the Self-righteous. We cannot have them in our Empire (Chorus)

Track length0:48

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The Narrator. And the boy's mother wrote a letter... (Bass)

Track length0:14

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The Mother, the Uncle and Aunt, and the Boy. O my son! (Soloists)

Track length1:12

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A Spiritual. Nobody knows the trouble I see, Lord (Soprano, Tenor, Chorus)

Track length1:23

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The boy becomes desperate in his agony (Alto, Bass)

Track length1:18

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The Narrator. They took a terrible vengeance (Bass)

Track length0:23

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The Terror. Burn down their houses! (Chorus)

Track length1:10

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The Narrator. Men were ashamed of what was done (Bass)

Track length0:34

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A Spiritual of Anger. Go down, Moses (Bass, Chorus)

Track length2:30

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The Boy sings in his Prison. My dreams are all shattered in a ghastly reality (Tenor)

Track length3:02

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The Mother. What have I done to you, my son? (Soprano)

Track length1:39

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The dark forces rise like a flood (Alto)

Track length0:40

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A Spiritual. O! by and by (Soprano, Chorus)

Track length1:32

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Tippett: A Child of our Time, Part III

Work length20:17

$6.30

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BBC Symphony Chorus, Sarah Connolly, Ashley Riches, Pumeza Matshikiza, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis, Joshua Stewart

The cold deepens (Chorus)

Track length3:38

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The soul of man is impassioned… (Alto)

Track length2:25

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The words of wisdom are these (Bass, Chorus)

Track length4:59

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Preludium

Track length1:05

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I would know my shadow and my light (Soloists, Chorus)

Track length4:56

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A Spiritual. Deep river (Soloists, Chorus)

Track length3:14

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About

Michael Tippett’s oratorio A Child of Our Time was composed between 1939 and 1942 as a direct response to the events leading up to (and including) the notorious Kristallnacht, in November 1938, in National Socialist Germany. Tippet first intended to write an opera, but quickly determined that this would inevitably be too literal, and that the (rather neglected) oratorio form lent greater scope for reflective and meditative interjections to the narrative. Hoping to persuade his friend and mentor T.S. Elliot to write the libretto, he sent the poet such an intricately detailed plan that Elliot responded by suggesting that Tippett, having thought so carefully about it, prepare the text himself – which he duly did. (He then went on to write his own libretti for all his future large vocal works).

Set for choir, orchestra, and four soloists, the work adopts a structure that owes a debt to Handel’s Messiah, which Tippett had studied intensively in the 1930s. In addition, Tippett wanted to incorporate choral interludes much as Bach had done in his passions. Rejecting Lutheran chorals and Jewish hymns, he finally settled on African-American spirituals of which he placed five within the work. Sir Andrew Davis conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in his final farewell, with an exceptional quartet of soloists. The album was recorded in Surround Sound in Croydon’s Fairfield Halls following live performances in London’s Royal Festival Hall.

Reviews

May 2024

Its greatest glory is perhaps the powerfully galvanised singing of the well-focused BBC Symphony Chorus – a broad spectrum of visceral expression across a huge dynamic range with every word clearly audible.

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