Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis noicon Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910), performed by the U.S. Army Band Strings.
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A string orchestra is an orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family. These instruments are the violin, the viola, the cello, the double bass (sometimes considered an anomaly because of its resemblance to the viol family), the piano, the harp, and sometimes percussion. String orchestras can be of chamber orchestra size ranging from between 12 (4.3.2.2.1 = 12) and 21 musicians (6.5.4.4.2 = 21) sometimes performing without a conductor, or consist of the entire string section of a large symphony orchestra which could have 60 musicians (16.14.12.10.8 = 60; Gurre-Lieder calls for 84: 20.20.16.16.12).

Film scores generally have quite varied string set-ups: for example, James Newton Howard's score for The Last Airbender featured 33 violins, 21 violas, 14 celli and 15 double basses, making it a total of 83 strings.

A twentieth century development has been the reappearance of the concerto grosso pitting of soloists against the full ensemble. During the past eras of pop music, it also employed up to 65-piece string orchestras (Two Tribes).^[1]

Repertoire[link]

	Serenade for Strings (Op. 20, mv 1) Edward Elgar's "Serenade for Strings, movement 1" performed by the United States Army Band Strings ensemble
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The repertoire is graced with several works by Mozart (including Eine kleine Nachtmusik) and Haydn which dispense with the baroque basso continuo. Some of these works are problematic when it comes to deciding whether they are for orchestra or string quartet. Particularly in Haydn's early works it is argued that the inversions of harmony from the occasional crossings of the bass and viola line imply a double bass; the question is not settled, however.

Important 20th century works have been written for string orchestra by Bartók (Divertimento for String Orchestra), Stravinsky (Apollo), Witold Lutosławski (Musique funèbre), Benjamin Britten (Simple Symphony and Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge), Charles Wuorinen (Grand Bamboula), and Malcolm Williamson (Symphony No. 7). Sir Michael Tippett wrote a Concerto for Double String Orchestra and Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a Partita for Double String Orchestra. Composers who have written a Serenade for string orchestra include Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Suk and Elgar. Mendelssohn also wrote a number of symphonies for string orchestra.

	Danse Sacrée L 103, No. 1 Danse Profane L 103, No. 2 Danses sacrée et profane by Debussy, performed by the United States Marine Chamber Orchestra. Arrangement of the chamber music pieces scored for string quintet of violin, viola, cello, double bass, and cross-strung harp.
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Sometimes works originally written for string quartet, quintet, sextet etc. are arranged for string orchestra. Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, Alban Berg's 3 Pieces from his Lyric Suite, Arnold Schoenberg's Second String Quartet and the sextet Verklärte Nacht, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's sextet Souvenir de Florence, John Corigliano's Second String Quartet and Jean Sibelius's Andante Festivo are examples, though a timpani is also added in the Sibelius piece. The work Shaker Loops written in 1978 for septet then arranged in 1983 for string orchestra by the American composer John Adams has become a popular addition to the repertoire in recent times. Graham Waterhouse composed several works for string orchestra (Sinfonietta), also in combination with contrasting sounds as Great Highland Bagpipe (Chieftain's Salute).

Other works for string orchestra[link]

• Giovanni Albini - Una teoria della prossimità (2006)
• Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings
• Leonard Bernstein - Serenade for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp and Percussion after Plato's "Symposium"
• Ernest Bloch - Concerto Grosso No. 2
• Stephen Brown - The Carol Suite (1993), Sunrise Serenade (2001), On the Idle Hill of Summer (2002)
• Carlos Chávez - Symphony No. 5
• Natalia Cherniy - The Brilliant Strings
• Nigel Clarke - The Miraculous Violin
• Antonín Dvořák - Serenade for String Orchestra in E major, Op.22
• Edward Elgar - Introduction and Allegro for Strings
• Philip Glass - "The Hours" (Soundrack) (large string orchestra plus piano soloist)
• Edvard Grieg - Holberg Suite (originally written for piano then arranged for string orchestra)
• Karl Amadeus Hartmann - Symphony No. 4
• Alfred Hill - String Symphonies
• Gustav Holst - St Paul's Suite
• Arthur Honegger - Symphony No. 2
• Charles Ives - The Call of the Mountains (arranged by Jonathan Dore from the String Quartet No. 2)
• Karl Jenkins - Palladio
• David Johnstone - more than 20 published works for string orchestra
• Nigel Keay - Serenade for Strings
• Marian Lejava - Chant d'Amour (version for strings)
• Felix Mendelssohn - String Symphonies
• Lior Navok - Between Two Coasts
• Ottorino Respighi - Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No. 3 (1932)
• Béla Bartók - "Divertimento" (1939)
• Carl Ruggles - Portals
• Aulis Sallinen - Aspects of the Funeral March of Hintriki Peltoniemi (originally written for string quartet then arranged for string orchestra)
• William Schuman - Symphony No. 5
• Jean Sibelius - Andante Festivo for strings and timpani
• Richard Strauss - Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings
• Igor Stravinsky - Concerto in D
• William Susman - Zydeco Madness, Angels of Light
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Serenade for Strings (Tchaikovsky)
• Dimitri Tchesnokov - Réminiscence d'après la symphonie pour cordes
• Robin Toan - dans la nuit (2006)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, Concerto Grosso
• Graham Waterhouse - Celtic Voices and Hale Bopp (1995, 1997), Sinfonietta (2002)
• Anthony Watson - Prelude and Allegro for Strings (1960)
• Malcolm Williamson - Epitaphs for Edith Sitwell (1966/72), Ode for Queen Elizabeth (1980), Lento for Strings (1985)
• Dag Wirén - Serenade for Strings
• Takashi Yoshimatsu - Threnody to Toki for Piano and String Orchestra (1980)
• Đuro Živković - Serenade (2002)
• Erić Zoran - Cartoon for Strings

Instrumentation[link]

• Violin (1,2)
• Viola
• Cello
• Double bass

External links[link]

• The String Orchestra of Brooklyn

References[link]

Haydn portrait by Thomas Hardy, 1792

Franz Joseph Haydn (  /ˈdʒoʊzəf ˈhaɪdən/; German pronunciation: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈhaɪdən] ( listen); 31 March^[1] 1732 – 31 May 1809), known as Joseph Haydn,^[2] was an Austrian^[3] composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms. He was also instrumental in the development of the piano trio and in the evolution of sonata form.^[4][5]

A lifelong resident of Austria, Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family on their remote estate. Isolated from other composers and trends in music until the later part of his long life, he was, as he put it, "forced to become original".^[6] At the time of his death, he was one of the most celebrated composers in Europe.^[7]

Joseph Haydn was the brother of Michael Haydn, himself a highly regarded composer, and Johann Evangelist Haydn, a tenor. He was also a close friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and a teacher of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Life[link]

Map showing locations where Haydn lived or visited. For discussion, see List of residences of Joseph Haydn.

Childhood[link]

Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, a village near the border with Hungary. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright who also served as "Marktrichter", an office akin to village mayor. Haydn's mother Maria, née Koller, had previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach, the presiding aristocrat of Rohrau. Neither parent could read music;^[8] however, Mathias was an enthusiastic folk musician, who during the journeyman period of his career had taught himself to play the harp. According to Haydn's later reminiscences, his childhood family was extremely musical, and frequently sang together and with their neighbors.^[9]

Haydn's parents had noticed that their son was musically gifted and knew that in Rohrau he would have no chance to obtain any serious musical training. It was for this reason that they accepted a proposal from their relative Johann Matthias Frankh, the schoolmaster and choirmaster in Hainburg, that Haydn be apprenticed to Frankh in his home to train as a musician. Haydn therefore went off with Frankh to Hainburg (seven miles away) and never again lived with his parents. He was about six years old.

Life in the Frankh household was not easy for Haydn, who later remembered being frequently hungry^[10] as well as constantly humiliated by the filthy state of his clothing.^[11] However, he did begin his musical training there, and soon was able to play both harpsichord and violin. The people of Hainburg heard him sing treble parts in the church choir.

There is reason to think that Haydn's singing impressed those who heard him, because he was soon^[12] brought to the attention of Georg von Reutter, the director of music in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, who happened to be visiting Hainburg. Haydn passed his audition with Reutter, and in 1740 moved to Vienna, where he worked for the next nine years as a chorister, after 1745 in the company of his younger brother Michael.

Haydn lived in the Kapellhaus next to the cathedral, along with Reutter, Reutter's family, and the other four choirboys.^[13] He was instructed in Latin and other school subjects as well as voice, violin, and keyboard.^[14] Reutter was of little help to Haydn in the areas of music theory and composition, giving him only two lessons in his entire time as chorister.^[15] However, since St. Stephen's was one of the leading musical centers in Europe, Haydn was able to learn a great deal simply by serving as a professional musician there.^[16]

Like Frankh before him, Reutter did not always bother to make sure Haydn was properly fed. As he later told his biographer Albert Christoph Dies, Haydn was motivated to sing very well, in hopes of gaining more invitations to perform before aristocratic audiences—where the singers were usually served refreshments.^[17]

St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna

Struggles as a freelancer[link]

By 1749, Haydn had matured physically to the point that he was no longer able to sing high choral parts—the Empress herself complained to Reutter about his singing, calling it "crowing".^[18] One day, Haydn carried out a prank, snipping off the pigtail of a fellow chorister.^[18] This was enough for Reutter: Haydn was first caned, then summarily dismissed and sent into the streets with no home to go to.^[19] He had the good fortune to be taken in by a friend, Johann Michael Spangler, who shared his family's crowded garret room with Haydn for a few months . Haydn immediately began his pursuit of a career as a freelance musician.

During this arduous time, Haydn worked at many different jobs: as a music teacher, as a street serenader, and eventually, in 1752, as valet–accompanist for the Italian composer Nicola Porpora, from whom he later said he learned "the true fundamentals of composition".^[20] He also was briefly in Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz's employ, playing the organ in the Bohemian Chancellery chapel at the Judenplatz.^[21]

When he was a chorister, Haydn had not received serious training in music theory and composition, which he perceived as a serious gap. To fill it, he worked his way through the counterpoint exercises in the text Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux, and carefully studied the work of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, whom he later acknowledged as an important influence.^[22]

As his skills increased, Haydn began to acquire a public reputation, first as the composer of an opera, Der krumme Teufel "The Limping Devil", written for the comic actor Johann Joseph Felix Kurz, whose stage name was "Bernardon". The work was premiered successfully in 1753, but was soon closed down by the censors.^[23] Haydn also noticed, apparently without annoyance, that works he had simply given away were being published and sold in local music shops.^[24] Between 1754 and 1756 Haydn also worked freelance for the court in Vienna. He was among several musicians who were paid for services as supplementary musicians at balls given for the imperial children during carnival season, and as supplementary singers in the imperial chapel (the Hofkapelle) in Lent and Holy Week.^[25]

With the increase in his reputation, Haydn eventually obtained aristocratic patronage, crucial for the career of a composer in his day. Countess Thun,^[26] having seen one of Haydn's compositions, summoned him and engaged him as her singing and keyboard teacher.^[27] In 1756, Baron Carl Josef Fürnberg employed Haydn at his country estate, Weinzierl, where the composer wrote his first string quartets. Fürnberg later recommended Haydn to Count Morzin, who, in 1757,^[28] became his first full time employer.^[29]

The years as Kapellmeister[link]

Haydn portrait by Ludwig Guttenbrunn, painted ca. 1791-2, depicts Haydn ca. 1770

Haydn's job title under Count Morzin was Kapellmeister, that is, music director. He led the count's small orchestra and wrote his first symphonies for this ensemble. In 1760, with the security of a Kapellmeister position, Haydn married. His wife was the former Maria Anna Aloysia Apollonia Keller (1729–1800), the sister of Therese (b. 1733), with whom Haydn had previously been in love. Haydn and his wife had a completely unhappy marriage,^[30] from which the laws of the time permitted them no escape; and they produced no children. Both took lovers.^[31]

Count Morzin soon suffered financial reverses that forced him to dismiss his musical establishment, but Haydn was quickly offered a similar job (1761) by Prince Paul Anton, head of the immensely wealthy Esterházy family. Haydn's job title was only Vice-Kapellmeister, but he was immediately placed in charge of most of the Esterházy musical establishment, with the old Kapellmeister, Gregor Werner, retaining authority only for church music. When Werner died in 1766, Haydn was elevated to full Kapellmeister.

View of Eszterháza

As a "house officer" in the Esterházy establishment, Haydn wore livery and followed the family as they moved among their various palaces, most importantly the family's ancestral seat Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt and later on Eszterháza, a grand new palace built in rural Hungary in the 1760s. Haydn had a huge range of responsibilities, including composition, running the orchestra, playing chamber music for and with his patrons, and eventually the mounting of operatic productions. Despite this backbreaking workload,^[32] the job was in artistic terms a superb opportunity for Haydn.^[33] The Esterházy princes (Paul Anton, then from 1762–1790 Nikolaus I) were musical connoisseurs who appreciated his work and gave him daily access to his own small orchestra.

Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, Haydn's most important patron

During the nearly thirty years that Haydn worked at the Esterházy court, he produced a flood of compositions, and his musical style continued to develop. His popularity in the outside world also increased. Gradually, Haydn came to write as much for publication as for his employer, and several important works of this period, such as the Paris symphonies (1785–1786) and the original orchestral version of The Seven Last Words of Christ (1786), were commissions from abroad.

Haydn also gradually came to feel more isolated and lonely, particularly as the court came to spend most of the year at Esterháza, far from Vienna, rather than the closer-by Eisenstadt.^[34] Haydn particularly longed to visit Vienna because of his friendships there.^[35]

Of these, a particularly important one was with Maria Anna von Genzinger (1754–93), the wife of Prince Nikolaus's personal physician in Vienna, who began a close, platonic, relationship with the composer in 1789. Haydn wrote to Mrs. Genzinger often, expressing his loneliness at Eszterháza and his happiness for the few occasions on which he was able to visit her in Vienna; later on, Haydn wrote to her frequently from London. Her premature death in 1793 was a blow to Haydn, and his F minor variations for piano, Hob. XVII:6, may have been written in response to her death.^[36]

Portrait of Mozart by Joseph Lange

Another friend in Vienna was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whom Haydn had met sometime around 1784. According to later testimony by Michael Kelly and others, the two composers occasionally played in string quartets together. Haydn was hugely impressed with Mozart's work and praised it unstintingly to others. Mozart evidently returned the esteem, as seen in his dedication of a set of six quartets, now called the "Haydn" quartets, to his friend. For further details see Haydn and Mozart.

The London journeys[link]

In 1790, Prince Nikolaus died and was succeeded as prince by his son Anton. Following a trend of the time,^[37] Anton sought to economize by dismissing most of the court musicians. Haydn retained a nominal appointment with Anton, at a reduced salary of 400 florins, as well as a 1000-florin pension from Nikolaus.^[38] Since Anton had little need of Haydn's services he was willing to let Haydn travel elsewhere, and the composer accepted a lucrative offer from Johann Peter Salomon, a German impresario, to visit England and conduct new symphonies with a large orchestra.

The visit (1791–1792), along with a repeat visit (1794–1795), was a huge success. Audiences flocked to Haydn's concerts; Haydn augmented his fame and made large profits, thus becoming financially secure.^[39] Charles Burney reviewed the first concert thus: "Haydn himself presided at the piano-forte; and the sight of that renowned composer so electrified the audience, as to excite an attention and a pleasure superior to any that had ever been caused by instrumental music in England."^[40]

Musically, the visits to England generated some of Haydn's best-known work, including the Surprise, Military, Drumroll, and London symphonies, the Rider quartet, and the "Gypsy Rondo" piano trio. The only misstep in the venture was an opera, L'anima del filosofo, which Haydn was contracted to compose, but whose performance was blocked by intrigues.^[41] Haydn made many new friends and was involved for a time in a romantic relationship with Rebecca Schroeter.

Portrait of Beethoven as a young man by Carl Traugott Riedel (1769–1832)

While traveling to London in 1790, Haydn had met the young Ludwig van Beethoven in his native city of Bonn. On Haydn's return, Beethoven came to Vienna and during the time up to the second London visit was Haydn's pupil. For discussion of their relationship, see Beethoven and his contemporaries.^[42]

Final years in Vienna[link]

Haydn returned to Vienna in 1795. Prince Anton had died, and his successor Nikolaus II proposed that the Esterházy musical establishment be revived with Haydn serving again as Kapellmeister. Haydn took up the position, though only on a part-time basis. He spent his summers with the Esterházys in Eisenstadt, and over the course of several years wrote six masses for them. But by this time Haydn had become a public figure in Vienna. He spent most of his time in his own home, a large house in the suburb of Gumpendorf,^[43] and wrote works for public performance. In collaboration with his librettist and mentor Gottfried van Swieten, and with funding from van Swieten's Gesellschaft der Associierten, Haydn composed his two great oratorios The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801). Both were enthusiastically received. Haydn frequently appeared before the public, often leading performances of The Creation for charity benefits. He also composed instrumental music: the popular Trumpet Concerto and the last nine in his long series of string quartets, including the Fifths, Emperor, and Sunrise quartets.

During the later years of this successful period Haydn faced incipient old age and fluctuating health, and he had to struggle to complete his final works. By about 1802, his condition had declined to the point that he became physically unable to compose.^[44] This was doubtless very difficult for him because, as he acknowledged, the flow of fresh musical ideas waiting to be worked out as compositions did not cease. Haydn was well cared for by his servants, and he received many visitors and public honours during his last years, but they could not have been very happy years for him. During his illness, Haydn often found solace by sitting at the piano and playing Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, which he had composed himself as a patriotic gesture in 1797.^[45] This melody was later used for the Austrian and German national anthems.

A final triumph occurred on 27 March 1808, when a performance of The Creation was organized in Haydn's honor. The very frail composer was brought into the hall on an armchair to the sound of trumpets and drums, and was greeted by Beethoven, by Salieri (who led the performance), and by other musicians and members of the aristocracy – many of whom probably sensed that they were saying goodbye to the elderly composer. Haydn was both moved and exhausted by the experience, and had to depart at intermission.^[46]

Haydn lived on for another year. He died, aged 77, at the end of May 1809, shortly after an attack on Vienna by the French army under Napoleon. Among his last words was his attempt to calm and reassure his servants when cannon shot fell in the neighborhood:^[47] "My children, have no fear, for where Haydn is, no harm can fall." Two weeks later, a memorial service was held in the Schottenkirche on 15 June 1809, at which Mozart's Requiem was performed.

Character and appearance[link]

James Webster writes of Haydn's public character thus: "Haydn's public life exemplified the Enlightenment ideal of the honnête homme (honest man): the man whose good character and worldly success enable and justify each other. His modesty and probity were everywhere acknowledged. These traits were not only prerequisites to his success as Kapellmeister, entrepreneur and public figure, but also aided the favourable reception of his music."^[48] Haydn was especially respected by the Eszterházy court musicians whom he supervised, as he maintained a cordial working atmosphere and effectively represented the musicians' interests with their employer; see Papa Haydn and the tale of the "Farewell" Symphony.

Haydn's signature on a musical work. He writes in Italian, a language he often used professionally: di me giuseppe Haydn, "by me Joseph Haydn".

Haydn had a robust sense of humor, evident in his love of practical jokes^[49] and often apparent in his music, and he had many friends. For much of his life he benefited from a "happy and naturally cheerful temperament",^[50] but in his later life, there is evidence for periods of depression, notably in the correspondence with Mrs. Genzinger and in Dies's biography, based on visits made in Haydn's old age.

Haydn was a devout Catholic who often turned to his rosary when he had trouble composing, a practice that he usually found to be effective.^[51] He normally began the manuscript of each composition with "in nomine Domini" ("in the name of the Lord") and ended with "Laus Deo" ("praise be to God").^[52]

Haydn was short in stature, perhaps as a result of having been underfed throughout most of his youth. He was not handsome, and like many in his day he was a survivor of smallpox, his face being pitted with the scars of this disease. His biographer Dies wrote, "he couldn't understand how it happened that in his life he had been loved by many a pretty woman. 'They couldn't have been led to it by my beauty'".^[53]

His nose, large and aquiline, was disfigured by polypus, which he suffered from for much of his adult life.^[54] This was an agonizing and debilitating disease in the 18th century, and at times it prevented him from writing music.^[55]

Haydn's musical handwriting: the original copy of Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser (click to enlarge)

Works[link]

James Webster summarizes Haydn's role in the history of classical music as follows:^[56] "He excelled in every musical genre… He is familiarly known as the 'father of the symphony' and could with greater justice be thus regarded for the string quartet; no other composer approaches his combination of productivity, quality and historical importance in these genres."

Structure and character of his music[link]

A central characteristic of Haydn's music is the development of larger structures out of very short, simple musical motifs, often derived from standard accompanying figures. The music is often quite formally concentrated, and the important musical events of a movement can unfold rather quickly.^[57]

Haydn's work was central to the development of what came to be called sonata form. His practice, however, differed in some ways from that of Mozart and Beethoven, his younger contemporaries who likewise excelled in this form of composition. Haydn was particularly fond of the so-called "monothematic exposition", in which the music that establishes the dominant key is similar or identical to the opening theme. Haydn also differs from Mozart and Beethoven in his recapitulation sections, where he often rearranges the order of themes compared to the exposition and uses extensive thematic development.^[58]

Haydn's formal inventiveness also led him to integrate the fugue into the classical style and to enrich the rondo form with more cohesive tonal logic (see sonata rondo form). Haydn was also the principal exponent of the double variation form—variations on two alternating themes, which are often major- and minor-mode versions of each other.

Perhaps more than any other composer's, Haydn's music is known for its humor.^[59] The most famous example is the sudden loud chord in the slow movement of his "Surprise" symphony; Haydn's many other musical jokes include numerous false endings (e.g., in the quartets Op. 33 No. 2 and Op. 50 No. 3), and the remarkable rhythmic illusion placed in the trio section of the third movement of Op. 50 No. 1.

Much of the music was written to please and delight a prince, and its emotional tone is correspondingly upbeat.^{[citation needed]} This tone also reflects, perhaps, Haydn's fundamentally healthy and well-balanced personality. Occasional minor-key works, often deadly serious in character, form striking exceptions to the general rule. Haydn's fast movements tend to be rhythmically propulsive and often impart a great sense of energy, especially in the finales. Some characteristic examples of Haydn's "rollicking" finale type are found in the "London" symphony No. 104, the string quartet Op. 50 No. 1, and the piano trio Hob XV: 27. Haydn's early slow movements are usually not too slow in tempo, relaxed, and reflective. Later on, the emotional range of the slow movements increases, notably in the deeply felt slow movements of the quartets Op. 76 Nos. 3 and 5, the Symphonies No. 98 and 102, and the piano trio Hob XV: 23. The minuets tend to have a strong downbeat and a clearly popular character. Over time, Haydn turned some of his minuets into "scherzi" which are much faster, at one beat to the bar.

Evolution of Haydn's style[link]

Haydn's early work dates from a period in which the compositional style of the High Baroque (seen in Bach and Handel) had gone out of fashion. This was a period of exploration and uncertainty, and Haydn, born 18 years before the death of Bach, was himself one of the musical explorers of this time.^[60] An older contemporary whose work Haydn acknowledged as an important influence was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.^[22]

Tracing Haydn's work over the six decades in which it was produced (roughly, 1749 to 1802), one finds a gradual but steady increase in complexity and musical sophistication, which developed as Haydn learned from his own experience and that of his colleagues. Several important landmarks have been observed in the evolution of Haydn's musical style.

In the late 1760s and early 1770s Haydn entered a stylistic period known as "Sturm und Drang" (storm and stress). This term is taken from a literary movement of about the same time, though it appears that the musical development actually preceded the literary one by a few years.^[61] The musical language of this period is similar to what went before, but it is deployed in work that is more intensely expressive, especially in the works in minor keys. James Webster describes the works of this period as "longer, more passionate, and more daring."^[62] Some of the most famous compositions of this time are the "Trauer" (Mourning) Symphony No. 44, "Farewell" Symphony No. 45, the piano sonata in C minor (Hob. XVI/20, L. 33), and the six string quartets of Op. 20 (the "Sun" quartets), all from ca. 1771–1772. It was also around this time that Haydn became interested in writing fugues in the Baroque style, and three of the Op. 20 quartets end with such fugues.

Following the climax of the "Sturm und Drang", Haydn returned to a lighter, more overtly entertaining style. There are no quartets from this period, and the symphonies take on new features: the scoring often includes trumpets and timpani. These changes are often related to a major shift in Haydn's professional duties, which moved him away from "pure" music and toward the production of comic operas. Several of the operas were Haydn's own work (see List of operas by Joseph Haydn); these are seldom performed today. Haydn sometimes recycled his opera music in symphonic works,^[63] which helped him continue his career as a symphonist during this hectic decade.

In 1779, an important change in Haydn's contract permitted him to publish his compositions without prior authorization from his employer. This may have encouraged Haydn to rekindle his career as a composer of "pure" music. The change made itself felt most dramatically in 1781, when Haydn published the six string quartets of Opus 33, announcing (in a letter to potential purchasers) that they were written in "a new and completely special way".^[64] Charles Rosen has argued that this assertion on Haydn's part was not just sales talk, but meant quite seriously; and he points out a number of important advances in Haydn's compositional technique that appear in these quartets, advances that mark the advent of the Classical style in full flower. These include a fluid form of phrasing, in which each motif emerges from the previous one without interruption, the practice of letting accompanying material evolve into melodic material, and a kind of "Classical counterpoint" in which each instrumental part maintains its own integrity. These traits continue in the many quartets that Haydn wrote after Opus 33.^[65]

In the 1790s, stimulated by his England journeys, Haydn developed what Rosen calls his "popular style", a method of composition that, with unprecedented success, created music having great popular appeal but retaining a learned and rigorous musical structure.^[66] An important element of the popular style was the frequent use of folk or folk-like material, as discussed in the article Haydn and folk music. Haydn took care to deploy this material in appropriate locations, such as the endings of sonata expositions or the opening themes of finales. In such locations, the folk material serves as an element of stability, helping to anchor the larger structure.^[67] Haydn's popular style can be heard in virtually all of his later work, including the twelve London symphonies, the late quartets and piano trios, and the two late oratorios.

The house in Vienna where Haydn lived in the last years of his life, now a museum

The return to Vienna in 1795 marked the last turning point in Haydn's career. Although his musical style evolved little, his intentions as a composer changed. While he had been a servant, and later a busy entrepreneur, Haydn wrote his works quickly and in profusion, with frequent deadlines. As a rich man, Haydn now felt that he had the privilege of taking his time and writing for posterity. This is reflected in the subject matter of The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801), which address such weighty topics as the meaning of life and the purpose of humankind, and represent an attempt to render the sublime in music. Haydn's new intentions also meant that he was willing to spend much time on a single work: both oratorios took him over a year to complete. Haydn once remarked that he had worked on The Creation so long because he wanted it to last.^[68]

The change in Haydn's approach was important in the history of classical music, as other composers were soon following his lead. Notably, Beethoven adopted the practice of taking his time and aiming high.^[69]

Identifying Haydn's works[link]

Haydn's works are listed in a comprehensive catalogue prepared by Anthony van Hoboken. This Hoboken catalogue provides each work with an identifying number, called its Hoboken number (abbreviation: H. or Hob.). The string quartets also have Hoboken numbers, but are usually identified instead by their opus numbers, which have the advantage of indicating the groups of six quartets that Haydn published together; thus for example the string quartet Opus 76, No. 3 is the third of the six quartets published in 1799 as Opus 76.

Media[link]

Symphony No. 101, the Clock Symphony, 2nd movement (Chamber Arrangement) Performed by the Amigos do JPC with Pedro Carlos Silva (piano) Sonata 62, Hoboken XVI:52, 1st movement Performed by Kristian Cvetković Sonata 62, Hoboken XVI:52, 2nd movement Performed by Kristian Cvetković Sonata 54, Hoboken XVI:40, 1st movement MIDI performance by Bernd Krueger Sonata 54, Hoboken XVI:40, 2nd movement MIDI performance by Bernd Krueger Cello Concerto in D, 1st movement Performed by orchestra with cellist John Michel Cello Concerto in D, 3rd movement Performed by orchestra with cellist John Michel

Problems listening to these files? See media help.

See also[link]

Works[link]

• Hoboken catalogue
• List of concertos by Joseph Haydn
• List of masses by Joseph Haydn
• List of operas by Joseph Haydn
• List of piano trios by Joseph Haydn
• List of solo piano compositions by Joseph Haydn
• List of string quartets by Joseph Haydn
• List of symphonies by Joseph Haydn
• Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser (God save Franz, the Emperor; the melody was later used in Das Lied der Deutschen, which is still Germany's national anthem.)
• The Creation
• The Seasons
• Baryton, for the baryton trios Haydn wrote for prince Nikolaus Esterházy

Contemporaries[link]

• Haydn and Mozart
• Beethoven and his contemporaries, i.e., Joseph Haydn
• Marianne von Martinez—as a child one of Haydn's first students; as an adult a friend and an eminent musician in her own right
• Johann Peter Salomon—organizer of the London journeys
• Gottfried van Swieten—the librettist of The Creation and The Seasons
• List of Austrians in music

Other topics[link]

• Haydn and folk music
• Haydn's head—how it was stolen after his death
• Joseph Haydn's ethnicity—an old controversy: was Haydn a Croatian?
• List of residences of Joseph Haydn
• "Papa" Haydn
• Mannersdorf am Leithagebirge—where Haydn visited and built his career during summer 1753

Notes[link]

References[link]

Biographical sources

• Dies, Albert Christoph (1963). "Biographical Accounts of Joseph Haydn". In Gotwals, Vernon, translator and editor. Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits. Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-02791-0.  A translation from the original German: "Biographische Nachrichten von Joseph Haydn nach mündlichen Erzählungen desselben entworfen und herausgegeben" ("Biographical accounts of Joseph Haydn, written and edited from his own spoken narratives") (1810). Camesinaische Buchhandlung, Vienna. One of the first biographies of Haydn, written on the basis of 30 interviews carried out during the composer's old age.
• Finscher, Ludwig (2000). Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag. ISBN 3-921518-94-6.  Highly detailed discussion of life and work; in German.
• Geiringer, Karl; Geiringer, Irene (1982). Haydn: A Creative Life in Music (3rd ed.). University of California. ISBN 0-520-04316-2.  The first edition was published in 1946 with Karl Geiringer as the sole author.
• Griesinger, Georg August (1963). "Biographical Notes Concerning Joseph Haydn". In Gotwals, Vernon, translator and editor. Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits. Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-02791-0.  A translation from the original German: "Biographische Notizen über Joseph Haydn" (1810). Leipzig. Like Dies's, a biography produced from interviews with the elderly Haydn.
• Hadden, James Cuthbert (2010). Haydn (Reissue ed.). London: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 1-108-01987-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=0IXbsEBrSK0C&pg=PA106. 
• Hughes, Rosemary (1970). Haydn (Revised ed.). New York: Farrar Strauss and Giroux. ISBN 0-460-02281-4.  Originally published in 1950. Gives a sympathetic and witty account of Haydn's life, along with a survey of the music.
• Jones, David Wyn (2009a) The Life of Haydn. Oxford University Press. Focuses on biography rather than musical works; an up-to-date study benefiting from recent scholarly research on Haydn's life and times.
• Jones, David Wyn (2009b) Oxford Composer Companions: Haydn. Oxford University Press. A one-volume encyclopedia with detailed contributions from many Haydn scholars.
• Landon, H.C. Robbins (1976–1980). Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-37003-5.  An extensive compilation of original sources in five volumes.
• Landon, H. C. Robbins; Jones, David Wyn (1988). Haydn: His Life and Music. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-37265-9.  Biography chapters by Robbins Landon, excerpted from Robbins Landon (1976–1980) and rich in original source documents. Analysis and appreciation of the works by Jones.
• Larsen, Jens Peter (1980). "Joseph Haydn". New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.  Published separately as The New Grove: Haydn. New York: Norton. 1982. ISBN 0-393-01681-1. 
• Webster, James; Feder, Georg (2001). "Joseph Haydn". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.  Published separately as a book: The New Grove Haydn. New York: Macmillan. 2002. ISBN 0-19-516904-2.  Careful scholarship with little subjective interpretation; covers both life and music, and includes a very detailed list of works.

Criticism and analysis sources

• Brendel, Alfred (2001). "Does classical music have to be entirely serious?". In Margalit, Edna; Margalit, Avishai. Isaiah Berlin: A Celebration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 193–204. ISBN 0-226-84096-4.  On jokes in Haydn and Beethoven.
• Clark, Caryl, ed. (2005). The Cambridge Companion to Haydn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-83347-7.  Covers each of the genres Haydn composed in as well as stylistic and interpretive contexts and performance and reception.
• Griffiths, Paul (1983). The String Quartet. New York: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-01311-X. 
• Hughes, Rosemary (1966). Haydn String Quartets. London: BBC.  A brief (55 page) introduction to Haydn's string quartets.
• Rosen, Charles (1997). The classical style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-31712-9.  First edition published in 1971. Covers much of Haydn's output and seeks to explicate Haydn's central role in the creation of the classical style. The work has been influential, provoking both positive citation and work (e.g., Webster 1991) written in reaction.
• Sisman, Elaine (1993) Haydn and the classical variation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-38315-X.
• Sutcliffe, W. Dean (1989). "Haydn's Musical Personality". The Musical Times 130 (1756): 341–344. DOI:10.2307/966030. JSTOR 966030. 
• Sutcliffe, W. Dean (1992). Haydn, string quartets, op. 50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39103-2.  Covers not just Op. 50 but also its relevance to Haydn's other output as well as his earlier quartets.
• Webster, James (1991). Haydn’s "Farewell" symphony and the idea of classical style: through-composition and cyclic integration in his instrumental music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-38520-2.  This book focuses on a single work, but contains many observations and opinions about Haydn in general.

External links[link]

	Book: Joseph Haydn
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Joseph Haydn

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Joseph Haydn

Wikisource has the text of an Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed.) article about Joseph Haydn.

• Albert Christoph Dies: (German) Biographische Nachrichten von Joseph Haydn. Wien: Camesinaische Buchhandlung, 1810.
• Haydn's Late Oratorios: The Creation and The Seasons by Brian Robins
• Full text of the biography Haydn by J. Cuthbert Hadden, 1902, from Project Gutenberg. The end of book contains documentary material including a number of Haydn's letters. Alternatively scanned copy Haydn at archive.org.
• Works by or about Joseph Haydn in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• No Royal Directive: Joseph Haydn and the String Quartet by Ron Drummond
• musicologie.org, with biography (French)
• 'Haydn – Quartet in F minor, Op.20 No.5', Lecture by Professor Roger Parker, with the Badke Quartet, Gresham College, 8 April 2008 (available for video, audio and text download).
• Haydn anniversary page on Bachtrack, includes lists of live performances

Scores and recordings[link]

• Free scores by Joseph Haydn at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Joseph Haydn in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Joseph Haydn in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• www.kreusch-sheet-music.net – Free Scores by Haydn
• Free scores at the Mutopia Project
• Works by Joseph Haydn at Project Gutenberg
• Kunst der Fuge: Franz Joseph Haydn – Hundreds of MIDI files
• Haydn's page at Classical Archives
• Franz Joseph Haydn on Naxos Records
• Haydn Symphonies from the British Library Sound Archive
• Complete recording of Joseph Haydns Pianosonatas on a sampled Walther Pianoforte
• Complete recording of Joseph Haydns Pianosonatas on a sampled Steinwy D

Peter Warlock

Peter Warlock was a pseudonym of Philip Arnold Heseltine (30 October 1894 – 17 December 1930), an Anglo-Welsh composer (mainly of songs) and music critic. He used the pseudonym (and various others) when composing, and is now better known by this name.

Life[link]

Philip Heseltine was born in the Savoy Hotel in London.^[1] His father died when he was only two, and his mother remarried in 1903;^[2] she then returned to her native Wales, living at Cefn Bryntalch Hall, Abermule, near Newtown, Montgomeryshire, the family home of her second husband, Walter Buckley Jones. Philip's education was mainly classical including studies at Eton College, at Christ Church, Oxford (for one year), and at University College London (one term). In music, he was mostly self-taught, studying composition on his own from the works of composers he admired, notably Frederick Delius, Roger Quilter and Bernard van Dieren. Nevertheless, one of the masters at Eton, Colin Taylor, had introduced him to some of the modern masters which made a marked impression on him, most notably Delius himself.^[2] He was also strongly influenced by Elizabethan music and poetry as well as by Celtic culture (he studied the Cornish, Welsh, Irish, Manx and Breton languages). It was the move to Wales, occasioned by his mother's remarriage, that was the spark for this; Welsh may at that time have enjoyed a relatively low status in the country but Philip, never one to shy away from the unconventional, set about learning it with vigour.

He married Minnie Lucy Channing ("Puma") on 22 December 1916;^[1] they had one son born in wedlock. In 2011, the British art critic Brian Sewell revealed that he was Heseltine's illegitimate child, born seven months after the composer's death.^[3][4]

Career[link]

Heseltine wrote his earliest mature compositions, published to critical acclaim under the newly adopted pseudonym Peter Warlock, following his sojourn in Ireland of 1917-1918. They were followed by a period of concentration on musical journalism; for a while, he was the editor of the musical magazine The Sackbut.

His most prolific period, both as a composer and author, was in the early 1920s, when he withdrew from the financial and social pressures of London to his mother's and stepfather's house in Mid-Wales. Here he wrote some of his finest songs, finally completing his song cycle The Curlew to poems by W. B. Yeats. During this period he also met Béla Bartók, who visited him while returning from a concert in Aberystwyth arranged by Professor Walford Davies, and whose influence can perhaps be seen in The Curlew.^{[citation needed]}

Frederick Delius prevailed on Heseltine to make an English translation of the German text of his Requiem in time for its premiere in London in 1922. Ernest Newman had earlier declined to be involved in the project. Heseltine did not like the work and his heart was not in the translation. This would have reduced the chances of the Requiem being received in a positive light, and it remains one of Delius's least known and least performed works.

Between 1925 and 1929, following a quiet period, Warlock and his colleague E. J. Moeran led a wild, boozy life in Eynsford, Kent, having to deal with the local police more than once - including for riding his motorbike naked. For Warlock, this was one of the most fruitful periods of his life, but by the end of the 1920s his creativity was waning and he had to support himself with music criticism again. He was suffering from severe depression, but whether his death from gas poisoning at the age of 36 was suicide or an accident is not known for certain.^[5][6] His cat had been put out of the room before he died, perhaps to spare it. There is a third possibility: Warlock had made Bernard van Dieren his heir in his will, inspiring claims by Warlock's son Nigel Heseltine that van Dieren had murdered his father.

His name is surrounded by rumours of involvement with the occult, an interest which he shared with others in the Bohemian world of the early 20th century — for example the novelist Mary Butts asserted that it was Warlock who initially introduced her to these subjects. Aleister Crowley, in his book Magick Without Tears, affirms that Warlock's death was the result of an Abramelin magical operation aimed at winning his wife back. Other less conventional aspects of Peter Warlock's life include experimentation with cannabis tincture, a gift for the composition of obscene limericks and a marked interest in flagellation.^{[citation needed]}

In popular culture[link]

Warlock inspired several characters in English language literature, among them:

• Julian Oakes, in Jean Rhys's short story "Till September Petronella," in Tigers Are Better-Looking (1968),^[7]
• Coleman in Aldous Huxley's Antic Hay (1923),
• Roy Hartle in Osbert Sitwell's Those Were the Days (1938),
• Giles Revelstoke in Robertson Davies' A Mixture of Frailties (1958); and
• Maclintick in Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (1960) by Anthony Powell.

• D. H. Lawrence's use of Warlock as the model for Julius Halliday in his novel Women in Love (1920) led to threat of a lawsuit, followed by an out of court settlement.
• He is used as a character, together with Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, madrigalist and uxoricide, in David Pownall's play Music to Murder By (1976).
• His life was the basis of a highly fictionalized film entitled Voices From a Locked Room (1999). The film starred Jeremy Northam and depicted Warlock as having multiple personality disorder.
• His life was portrayed in the 2005 film Peter Warlock, Some Little Joy.^[8]

Works[link]

Warlock's compositions are nearly all songs and most of these are for solo voice and piano. There is a smaller, but still significant, number of pieces for voices — choral songs — although a few of these are arrangements of his solo songs.

He wrote little instrumental music, although the suite Capriol (October 1926) is probably his best-known work and exists in versions for string orchestra, full orchestra and piano duet. (There are arrangements for other combinations, but these are not by Warlock.) His only composition for solo piano is a set of arrangements of Celtic melodies, the "Folk-song preludes". He had a deep affinity for poetry, especially that of Yeats and his friends Robert Nichols and Bruce Blunt (1899–1957). He always chose texts of high artistic value, many of them from the Middle Ages, as basis for his songs.

Many people consider his greatest work to be the song-cycle The Curlew, for tenor and chamber ensemble, in which he sets four linked poems by Yeats. It is certainly his most substantial piece and was written over a long period of time — some seven years — taking in many stylistic changes along the way from the neo-Delianism of "The lover mourns for the loss of love" to sections within the longest song, "The withering of the boughs" that suggest Bartók and Schoenberg as influences before achieving a more idiosyncratic, modal, and genuinely Warlockian vocabulary.

Warlock is also known for his many carols, such as Adam lay ybounden, Tyrley Tyrlow, I Saw a Maiden and Bethlehem Down, the last a setting of words by Bruce Blunt.

Warlock's musical tastes were wide, from Renaissance music to Bartók. In his own works, we hear a development from emulation of the Victorian and Edwardian drawing-room style to a more contrapuntal, strongly personal idiom characterised by the relationship between modal lines and a distinctive palette of chords. He was unusual amongst composers of his generation in being largely unaffected by the folksong movement, either as an arranger (the above-named piano pieces being an exception) or a composer. He wrote only one folksong-orientated work, the cycle "Lilligay".

Apart from original works, Warlock edited and transcribed many lute songs by Elizabethan and Jacobean composers in addition to music by Purcell and other Baroque composers. He also did much to promote the music of Delius, especially by organising the successful Delius Festival of 1929 with Thomas Beecham. He wrote the first biography of Delius, as well as, with Cecil Gray, a book about Carlo Gesualdo. His book on The English Ayre was a ground breaking study, but he also wrote about contemporary music. His article on Arnold Schoenberg was probably the first substantial study in English of his music. In 1925, Warlock rediscovered the music of 16th century composer Thomas Whythorne, and published a book of his compositions and poetry.

Warlock also edited, under the pseudonym Rab Noolas (to be read backwards, i.e. Saloon Bar), an anthology on drinking "for the delectation of serious topers", entitled Merry-Go-Down (Mandrake Press, c. 1930).

Selected bibliography[link]

• Collins, Brian, Peter Warlock: The Composer (Aldershot, 1996).
• Copley, Ian, The Music of Peter Warlock: A Critical Survey (London, 1979).
• Gray, Cecil, Peter Warlock: A Memoir of Philip Heseltine, with contributions by Sir Richard Terry and Robert Nichols (London, 1934).
• Heseltine, Nigel, Capriol for Mother (London, 1992)
• Peter Warlock: A Centenary Celebration, compiled and edited by David Cox & John Bishop. London: Thames Publishing, 1994.
• Smith, Barry, Peter Warlock: The Life of Philip Heseltine (Oxford, 1994).
• Smith, Barry, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock: A Friendship Revealed (Oxford, 2000).
• Smith, Barry (ed.), The Collected Letters of Peter Warlock (4 vols.) (Woodbridge, 2005)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Peter Warlock

• Philip Arnold Heseltine (Peter Warlock) (1894-1930), Music scholar and composer: Sitter associated with 4 portraits (National Portrait Gallery)
• The Peter Warlock Society website, including a more detailed biography and a complete list of works.
• Peter Warlock's Songs in the Schubertline (online) edition.
• The UK branch of the Peter Warlock Society website, with UK events and the music hire library lists.
• The Warlock Singers A chamber choir based in Kent, UK named after Peter Warlock, specialising in British music of all periods.
• Free scores by Peter Warlock in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Peter Warlock at the International Music Score Library Project

This article may contain wording that merely promotes the subject without imparting verifiable information. Please remove or replace such wording, unless you can cite independent sources that support the characterization. (January 2012)

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Eric Whitacre
Whitacre conducting in 2007
Background information
Born	(1970-01-02) 2 January 1970 (age 42)
Occupations	Composer Conductor Lecturer Model
Website	EricWhitacre.com

Eric Whitacre (born 2 January 1970 in Reno, Nevada) is an American Grammy award winning composer, conductor and lecturer. He is one of the most popular and performed composers of his generation.^[1][2] In 2008, the all-Whitacre choral CD Cloudburst (released by the British ensemble Polyphony on Hyperion Records) became an international best-seller, topping the classical charts and earning a Grammy nomination. Robert Hollingworth commented: "what hits you straight between the eyes is the honesty, optimism and sheer belief that passes any pretension. This is music that can actually make you smile."^[3] In addition to Whitacre's litany of choral and wind ensemble compositions, he is also known for his "Virtual Choir" projects on YouTube, bringing individual voices from around the globe together in a cyber internet choir. His virtual choirs have exposed his music to a new audience and have helped it gain an unprecedented popularity.^[4][5] Whitacre signed a long-term recording deal with Decca in 2010 and continues to develop his award winning musical Paradise Lost. A concert version was given at Carnegie Hall in 2010.^[6] Plans for the stage show and soundtrack extend into 2013.

Biography[link]

Coming to classical music relatively late in life when he joined a college choir at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), where he earned a BA in Music in 1995. The first work that Eric Whitacre sang – Mozart's Requiem – changed his life. Inspired to compose, his first piece Go, Lovely Rose was completed at the age of 21. At the age of 23 he completed his first piece for Wind Orchestra, Ghost Train, which has been recorded over 40 times and has continued to sell phenomenally well. He went on to the Juilliard School (New York), where he studied with Pulitzer Prize and Oscar-winning composer, John Corigliano and earned his Master of Music degree.

Countless recordings feature music written by Eric Whitacre, but his first album as both composer and conductor on Decca/Universal, Light & Gold, won a Grammy in 2012, reaped unanimous five star reviews, and became the no. 1 Classical Album in the US and UK charts within a week of a release. Eric's second album, Water Night, was released on Decca in 3 April 2012 and will feature seven world premiere recordings and include performances from his professional choir Eric Whitacre Singers, the London Symphony Orchestra, Julian Lloyd Webber and Hila Plitmann.

He has written for the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Chanticleer, Julian Lloyd Webber, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Rundfunkchor Berlin, and The King's Singers, among others. His musical, Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, won both the ASCAP Harold Arlen award and the Richard Rodgers Award, and earned 10 nominations at the Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Awards. A versatile musician, he has also worked with prolific film composer, Hans Zimmer, co-writing the Mermaid Theme for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. In 2011, Eric conducted the winning entries of the Abbey Road 80th Anniversary Anthem Competition, recording the London Symphony Orchestra and his professional choir, the Eric Whitacre Singers, in Abbey Road Studio 1.

Eric's ground-breaking Virtual Choir, Lux Aurumque, received over a million views on YouTube in just 2 months (now approaching 3 million), featuring 185 singers from 12 different countries. Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 2.0, Sleep, was released in April 2011 and involved over 2,000 voices from 58 countries. Virtual Choir 3, Water Night, combined 3746 submissions from 73 countries and was released in April 2012.

As a conductor, Eric Whitacre has performed across the world with orchestras, choirs and bands, and he gives regular guest workshops. His Soaring Leap initiative is a dynamic one-day workshop where singers, conductors and composers read, rehearse and perform several of Eric's works, digging deep into the poetry and exploring the compositional tools. An exceptional orator, he was honoured to address the U.N. Leaders programme and give a TED Talk in March 2011, which earned the first full standing ovation of the conference. He has addressed audiences at Duke, Harvard, The Economist, Seoul Digital Forum and JCDA Conference in Tokyo. Eric was appointed Composer in Residence at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University, UK, in September 2011.

Many of Eric Whitacre's works have entered the standard choral and symphonic repertories and have become the subject of scholarly works and doctoral dissertations. Whitacre has received composition awards from the Barlow International Composition Competition, the ACDA and the American Composers Forum. In 2001, he became the youngest recipient ever awarded the coveted Raymond C. Brock commission by the ACDA. Eric Whitacre currently lives in London with his wife (Grammy award winning soprano, Hila Plitmann) and their son.

Style[link]

Whitacre writes music that incorporates contemporary sounds and influences while demanding precision, intonation and ensemble. He is probably best known for his choral works; however, both his choral and instrumental styles use his signature "Whitacre chords," or pan-diatonic clusters usually arranged in successive increasing or decreasing density. Whitacre achieves this growth and decay by splitting voices divisi—in one case up to 18 parts. These sonorities can often be read as seventh or ninth chords, with or without suspended seconds and fourths. Perhaps his most famous chord is a root-position major triad with an added major second and/or perfect fourth. Whitacre makes frequent use of quartal, quintal and secundal harmonies, and is also known for his use of unconventional chord progressions. His use of rhythm often involves mixed, complex, and/or compound meters. His pieces sometimes include frequent meter changes and unusual rhythmic patterns. Another trademark of Whitacre's pieces is the use of aleatoric and indeterminate sections, as well as unusual score instructions involving, in some cases, hand actions and/or props.^[7]

Projects[link]

Virtual Choir[link]

Whitacre's Virtual Choir projects were inspired by a video sent to him of a young girl singing one of his choral pieces.^[8] He began with a test run of Sleep, then Lux Aurumque in 2009^[4][9] and then Sleep again in 2010. The video for Lux Aurumque, featuring a virtual choir of 185 voices from 12 countries, was described as a "musical experience that works better than anyone might have expected."^[10] It received over a million hits in the first two months of its release.

The 2010 version of the Virtual Choir 2.0 "Sleep" began in October 2010, and the video submission process was completed on 10 January 2011. Whitacre spoke at The 2011 TED Conference^[11] and this video was released on 1 April 2011, accompanied with a short 2 minute example of the "Sleep" project. The YouTube release was on 7 April 2011. One year later,it had been viewed over 900,000 times.

On 27 September 2011, Eric announced on his blog his plans for a "Virtual Choir 3". On 21 December 2011, it was revealed that the piece will be "Water Night", an a cappella piece he wrote in 1995.^[12] By the entry close date of 1 February 2012, 3,746 videos had been uploaded by 2,945 people in 73 countries, singing one or more parts of Water Night. NBC Network's Nightly News, and ABC National News television reported on the Virtual Choir. This heightened awareness of the project in the mainstream. The completed work was released as a YouTube video 2 April 2012, and received 100,000 views in the first week. On 15 April, on the exact 100 year anniversary moment of the sinking of the Titanic, the Water Night Virtual Choir video was shown in the new Titanic Belfast commemorative building, in remembrance of those lost in the disaster.

Recording projects[link]

Whitacre's first album with Decca, Light & Gold, was released in October 2010. This album won the Grammy for Best Choral Performance in 2012.^[13] From October to December 2010, Whitacre was a visiting Fellow at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge during Michaelmas (Autumn) Term.^[14]

Whitacre's second album with Decca, Water Night, was released on 3 April 2012 in the United States, and features some of his newest compositions for chorus and for orchestra.^[15]

Performance projects[link]

Whitacre has worked collaboratively with Distinguished Concerts International New York^[16] (DCINY), and is due to collaborate with them again in 2011 in New York, Vancouver and Los Angeles. With regard to his musical "Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings", he was described by the New York Times as a "younger, hipper Andrew Lloyd Webber, with fleeting hints of Bernstein and Sondheim".^[6]

On 24 October 2010, he conducted an all-American programme with the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the Barbican London in a performance that featured his commission for the London Symphony Chorus entitled Songs of Immortality. On 28 November 2010, he sat on the panel of judges for the final episode of Choir of the Year, broadcast on BBC Four and BBC Radio 3. In December 2010, Whitacre conducted the I Vocalisti choir in Hamburg, and was a guest conductor of the Christmas performance of the Berlin Rundfunkchor.

On 6 November 2010, Whitacre conducted Côrdydd, a Cardiff-based mixed choir, and friends in a concert of his work at the BBC Hoddinott Hall in the Wales Millennium Centre.

He composed a piece for the Sidney Sussex college choir, and worked with students in masterclasses and workshops. The concert version of his musical Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings was performed to a sold out audience at Carnegie Hall in June 2010.

Whitacre is a founding member of BCM International, a quartet of composers consisting of himself, Steven Bryant, Jonathan Newman and James Bonney, which aspires to "enrich the wind ensemble repertoire with music unbound by traditional thought or idiomatic cliché."^[17]

Awards and honors[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2011)

Whitacre has won awards from the Barlow international composition competition, American Choral Directors Association, American Composers' Forum and in 2001 became the youngest recipient ever of The Raymond C Brock Commission given by the American Choral Directors Association. His musical Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings earned him a Richard Rodgers Award and received 10 nominations at the 2007 Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Awards. The album Cloudburst and Other Choral Works received a Grammy nomination in 2007 for Best Choral Performance. Later, his album "Light and Gold" won a Grammy for Best Choral Performance in 2012.^[18]

Works[link]

Wind symphony[link]

• Equus
• Ghost Train Triptych
  • Ghost Train
  • At the Station
  • Motive Revolution
• Godzilla Eats Las Vegas!
• Noisy Wheels of Joy
• October
• Sleep (choral transcription)
• The Seal Lullaby (choral transcription for wind symphony and piano)
• Lux Aurumque (transcription of the choral work, transposed a semitone lower from C-Sharp Minor to C Minor)
• Cloudburst (choral transcription)
• Libertas Imperio (From Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings)

SATB choral[link]

• A Boy and A Girl (poem by Octavio Paz)
• Alleluia (adapted from his October)
• Animal Crackers, Volume 1 (Poems by Ogden Nash)
  • The Panther
  • The Cow
  • The Firefly
• Animal Crackers, Volume 2 (Poems by Ogden Nash)
  • The Canary
  • The Eel
  • The Kangaroo
• The City and the Sea (poems by e. e. cummings)
  • i walked the boulevard
  • the moon is hiding in her hair
  • maggie and millie and molly and may
  • as is the sea marvelous
  • little man in a hurry
• Cloudburst (poem by Octavio Paz)
• Five Hebrew Love Songs (poem by Hila Plitmann)
  • Temuna
  • Kala Kalla (Light Bride)
  • Larov (Mostly)
  • Eyze Sheleg! (What snow!)
  • Rakut (Tenderness)
• Goodnight Moon (chorus and piano)
• Her Sacred Spirit Soars (poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
• Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine (libretto by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
• Little Birds (poem by Octavio Paz)
• little tree (poem by E. E. Cummings)
• Lux Aurumque (poem by Edward Esch; translated into Latin by Charles Anthony Silvestri) (also set for male chorus)
• Nox Aurumque (poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
• Oculi Omnium
• The Seal Lullaby (poem by Rudyard Kipling)
• She Weeps Over Rahoon (poem by James Joyce)
• Sleep (originally a setting of Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"; for copyright reasons^[19] the published version uses a specially-written text by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
• Sleep, My Child (Choral transcription from Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings)
• The Stolen Child (setting of a poem by William Butler Yeats, commissioned in 2008 by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and The King's Singers for their respective 25th and 40th anniversaries)
• This Marriage (poem by Jalal al-Din Rumi)
• Three Flower Songs
  • I Hide Myself (poem by Emily Dickinson)
  • With a Lily in Your Hand (poem by Federico García Lorca)
  • Go, Lovely Rose (poem by Edmund Waller)
• Three Songs of Faith (poems by E. E. Cummings)
  • i will wade out
  • hope, faith, life, love
  • i thank You God for most this amazing day^[20]
• Water Night (poem by Octavio Paz; translated by Muriel Rukeyser)
• When David Heard (from II Samuel 18:33)
• Winter (poem by Edward Esch)
• What If (lyrics by David Norona and Eric Whitacre)

SSA choral[link]

• She Weeps Over Rahoon (text by James Joyce)
• Five Hebrew Love Songs (poem by Hila Plitmann)
• The Seal Lullaby (text by Rudyard Kipling)
• I Thank You God (text by E. E. Cummings)

TTBB choral[link]

• Lux Aurumque (poem by Edward Esch, translated into Latin by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
• The Seal Lullaby (text by Rudyard Kipling)

Choral works not yet published[link]

• Goodnight Moon
• Songs of Immortality
  • Lie still, sleep becalmed (poem by Dylan Thomas)
  • After Great Pain (poem by Emily Dickinson)^[21]

Orchestral[link]

• A Boy and a Girl
• Equus
• Goodnight Moon (strings, harp, soprano)
• Lux Aurumque
• October
• The River Cam
• Water Night
• Winter
• Winter (for strings, choir and sitar)

Solo voice[link]

• The City and the Sea (poems by E. E. Cummings)
• Five Hebrew Love Songs (poem by Hila Plitmann)

Music theatre[link]

• Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, a musical featuring electronic, world, and orchestral instruments; classical singers; and many different styles of music.

Other arrangements[link]

• Rak HaHatchala (Only the Beginning) [aka Five Hebrew Love Songs]; for soprano voice, solo violin, piano

Film and Television[link]

• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, co-composer (with Hans Zimmer) of the Mermaid Theme and choral segments

Publishers[link]

Whitacre is published by Chester Music; G. Schirmer; Walton Music; Santa Barbara Music; Shadow Water Music; and Carpe Ranam Music.

Biography portal

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Eric_Whitacre on WikiMusicGuide
• Biography on Hyperion Records
• NPR Review of Cloudburst and choral audio. 28 September 2006
• Music Productions Ltd (Management company of Eric Whitacre)
• Eric Whitacre write-up on ChesterNovello web site
• Eric talking at TED about the virtual choir
• Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 2.0, 'Sleep'
• Classical Archives Interview

Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer.

In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music. The works for which he is best known are the Concerto for Double String Orchestra, the oratorio A Child of Our Time and the Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli.

His deeply held humanitarian and pacifist beliefs shaped both his life and his music: he served a prison sentence as a conscientious objector in the Second World War. An interest in many aspects of contemporary culture is reflected in his music and writings. Tippett was one of the first openly gay composers to explore issues of sexuality in his work.^[1] The libretti of his operas, which he wrote himself, attracted criticism for their apparent naivety and sometimes awkward and not quite idiomatic use of contemporary slang, as well as for their sometimes obscure extra-musical references.^[2] He had a keen interest in musical education and in later life was active as a broadcaster and lecturer. As a conductor he recorded many of his own works. He is generally acknowledged to be one of the most important British composers of the 20th century.^[3][4]

Life[link]

1905–25[link]

Tippett was born in London in 1905, the younger of two boys. His father, Henry William Tippett (1858–1944), came from an old Cornish family. A lawyer and entrepreneur, his investments included the Lyceum Theatre, London and a hotel in Cannes, France. His mother, Isabel Clementina Binny Kemp (1880–1969) trained as a nurse. She was a novelist and playwright, a member of the Labour Party and a suffragette who went to prison for her beliefs.^[5]

In the year of his birth, the family moved to Wetherden in rural Suffolk. He had a happy and active childhood, enjoying home theatricals and singing in the church choir. From an early age he showed an aptitude for music. Despite their liberal views his parents knew little about music as a profession and were bemused when, aged ten, he told them that he wanted to become a composer.^[6] At preparatory school in Dorset he wrote an essay disproving the existence of God. He was sent to Fettes College near Edinburgh, which he hated. After admitting an affair with another boy, his parents removed him.^[7] The remaining years of his school education were at Stamford School in Lincolnshire. Here he flourished, learning piano and harmony with Frances Tinkler, a dedicated and supportive mentor.^[8] His first experience of modern music was hearing Ravel's Mother Goose suite at a concert in Leicester conducted by Malcolm Sargent. From that moment on, he knew he had to be a composer.^[9]

Financial difficulties after the First World War forced his parents to sell their home and live in the Cannes hotel. In time this too was sold and the family lived an unsettled existence moving around Europe. Tippett spent vacations with them, learning French and Italian and acquiring at an early age an easy familiarity with European people and manners.^[10] At school Tippett's atheism and general rebelliousness prompted the headmaster to ask that he be removed to lodgings in the town, out of bounds to the other boys.^[11] In the meantime he bought a copy of Stanford's Musical Composition, and set about teaching himself to compose. A chance encounter with a musician on a train led to an interview with the Principal of the Royal College of Music in London.^[12] Tippett was accepted, despite his lack of musical knowledge. His parents agreed to pay his fees on condition that he aim to become a Doctor of Music, and in the summer of 1923 he began studies at the RCM.

The Royal College of Music, where Tippett studied

London opened up a new world of musical and social opportunity for Tippett. He hungrily absorbed all that the capital had to offer, from Beethoven symphonies at the Promenade Concerts, Palestrina masses at Westminster Cathedral to Mozart operas at the Old Vic.^[10] Through new friends he was able to pursue his interest in theatre. Tippett's first composition tutor was Charles Wood, who used the works of the established masters – Bach, Mozart, Beethoven – as models, stressing the importance of a solid understanding of musical forms and syntax. Tippett had always felt that he lacked a secure technique and welcomed this rigorous approach. When Wood died, he decided not to study with Vaughan Williams, then a member of the RCM teaching staff. Rather than become a mere imitator of the great man, he chose instead a pedantic teacher, Dr C.H. Kitson. The relationship between teacher and pupil was at times strained.^[13] Kitson's teaching was harmony-based, and Tippett's natural style was contrapuntal. He persevered, however, and after four years had built the foundations of a solid compositional technique. His piano studies with Aubin Raymar were less successful, but from Malcolm Sargent and Adrian Boult he learned a working knowledge of the orchestra and conducting. He graduated in 1928 after failing the exams at the first attempt.

1929–34[link]

Tippett did not stay long in London. An invitation to conduct a concert and operatic society in Oxted, Surrey entailed a move back to the rural environment that he knew and loved. Exciting as London had been, he needed space and quiet to compose. In 1929 he rented a small cottage on the North Downs, formed a madrigal group and took up a teaching post at a local school. With help from his father, he was able to build a bungalow at nearby Limpsfield. At the local Barn Theatre^[14] Tippett undertook productions of a number of stage works, including his own version of the 18th century ballad opera The Village Opera. He conducted two complete performances of Handel's Messiah, a rare event at the time. Having loved the stage since his schooldays, he relished the opportunity to improve his knowledge of stagecraft and to study the challenges of word setting in the different disciplines of opera and oratorio.

Tippett's own music began to feature in the Oxted programmes, and in April 1930 a concert took place consisting entirely of his own compositions. Though favourably received by the press – The Times described his music as having "a personal distinction and sincerity which is absent from the work of the Central European composers of today"^[15] – the experience convinced Tippett that he still lacked a watertight technique.^[16] He withdrew the pieces and arranged further study with R. O. Morris, an expert on 16th century polyphony who had already taught Tippett at the RCM. A rigorous training ensued, during which he learned to write fugues in the style of Bach. These eighteen months were probably the most formative in the composer's life.^[17] Under Morris's guidance he finally achieved the mastery of counterpoint that had long been his goal.

Tippett accepted his homosexuality from an early age, but felt disturbed by a feeling of exclusion from 'normal life':^[18] "[B]eing unable to enter into a biological relationship with a woman, it seemed that I was excluded from an understanding of half the human race."^[19] He was also keenly aware of parental disapproval of his sexuality. With his good looks, charm and charisma, Tippett was a magnet for both men and women. He had a number of intense, emotional friendships with women, some of whom undoubtedly wanted more. One such was Evelyn Maude, an amateur cellist with whom he had a close, supportive friendship. Deeply in love with Tippett, her role was that of confidante, almost like an elder sister.^[20] Equally intense was his friendship with Francesca Allinson, a musician and musicologist. At one time they contemplated adopting children.^[20] Her suicide at the end of World War II affected him profoundly. But it was a young painter, Wilfred Franks,^[21] who inspired the composer's first real love experience.^[22] In Tippett's own words, his relationship with Franks was "the deepest, most shattering experience of falling in love", and "a major factor underlying the discovery of my own individual musical 'voice'. "^[23]

While hiking with Franks in the North, Tippett was horrified by the sight of under-nourished children.^[22] The experience convinced him that "somewhere music could have a direct relation also to the compassion that was so deep in my heart".^[24] From then on, he sought to combine music-making with political action. He gave up the school teaching job and took on the conductorship of a number of amateur choirs. At a concert in London's East End he encouraged choir members to bring food for the audience as well as for themselves.^[25] Through his friend David Ayerst, Tippett went to work at experimental farms for the unemployed in Yorkshire. There he mounted a special version of The Beggar's Opera for local people to perform. Its success led to the composition of a new work: the ballad opera Robin Hood. Although never published, Tippett reworked some of the material in his 1948 Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles. He began to conduct the South London Orchestra, made up largely of theatre musicians made redundant by the arrival of the 'talkies'. Through Francesca Allinson he met the Marxist composer Alan Bush, who was the conductor of the London Labour Choral Union.Tippett conducted the orchestra at the Pageant of Labour at the Crystal Palace on 15–20 October 1934.^[26]

Tippett's political leanings reflected his love of personal freedom and dislike of oppressive authority. Thus he embraced Trotsky's internationalism over Stalin's rigidly controlled and centralised state. He joined the Communist Party in 1935, but left after failing to subvert it to Trotskyism.^[27] In 1935 Tippett wrote an agitprop play, War Ramp, about the role of public credit in the financing of war.^[28] Although the logic of the play's argument seemed to lead to the advocacy of violent revolution, he rejected this.^[29] By gradual stages, he was drawn to pacifism.^[27] Faced with the twin evils of Nazism and Stalin's labour camps,^{[n 1]} he became one of 100,000 people to take up the pledge of the Rev. Dick Sheppard: 'I renounce war and never again, directly or indirectly, will I support or sanction another.'^[31] The result was the Peace Pledge Union. Tippett became a prominent member and eventually its president. One of his last public acts was to unveil the Commemorative Stone to Conscientious Objectors in Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury, London, on 15 May 1994, International Conscientious Objectors' Day.

1935–44[link]

Herschel Grynszpan

In December 1935 the Brosa Quartet gave the first performance of Tippett's String Quartet in A, his first acknowledged work. Although he later replaced the opening two movements with a single one, the music bears all the hallmarks of his mature style.^[32] A symphony in B flat from the same year was performed but later withdrawn. The quartet was followed by the First Piano Sonata, the Concerto for Double String Orchestra, the Fantasia on a Theme of Handel and the oratorio A Child of Our Time.

The period leading up to the composition of this, Tippett's first major work and the one for which he is still best known, was one of turmoil for the composer.^[29] He went through an acute emotional crisis after Franks announced his plans to marry, and turned to Jungian self-analysis.^[33] For nine months Tippett wrote down all his dreams, stopping three days before the outbreak of the Second World War. His final recorded dream, in which he imagined he was strangled by four men, seemed to him a sign of impending rebirth.^[34] On the day war was declared, 3 September 1939, Tippett began to write the music for A Child of Our Time. Tippett had originally conceived the idea of an opera based on the Irish Easter Rising of 1916.^[35] But an event occurred that provided him with a scenario ideally fitted to his conception of a work both contemporary and in the grand choral tradition of Bach's Passions and Handel's Messiah. The 1938 shooting of a German diplomat by a young Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, led directly to the worst anti-Jewish pogrom of the pre-war years, culminating in the events of Kristallnacht on 9 November when thousands of Jewish homes, shops and premises in Germany and Austria were ransacked and burned. Tippett shared in the widespread public horror and felt impelled to respond.^[35]

A few years previously he had formed a friendship with the poet and playwright T. S. Eliot. Eliot was to be one of the most influential figures in his professional life, and Tippett often described him as his "spiritual father".^[35] Of particular importance was the older man's advice on the relationship between words and music and the problems involved in setting texts. Tippett asked Eliot to write the libretto for his new oratorio, but the poet refused, feeling that Tippett had already written a major part and that his contribution would compete with the music for attention.^[36] A Child of Our Time was completed in 1941 but not performed until 1944. During this time Tippett was steadily gaining critical recognition for his work. Though he had few performances of his music, and the BBC, the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) Festival and the publishers Boosey & Hawkes all turned down the Concerto for Double String Orchestra (later to be one of his most popular works), a private recording of the First Piano Sonata by Phyllis Sellick attracted favourable reviews. William Glock, writing in The Observer, hailed it and the recently premiered Second String Quartet by announcing that "A new composer has emerged in English music",^[37] The publishers Schott agreed to publish the Piano Sonata and the Concerto for Double String Orchestra. They remained Tippett's publishers for the rest of his life.

Tippett was invited in 1940 to become the director of music at Morley College in South London. In the eleven years of his tenure the choir grew from 10 to nearly 50. Tippett appointed a number of former refugees to his staff including the composer Matyas Seiber, the conductor Walter Goehr and three of the future members of the Amadeus Quartet. He brought the countertenor Alfred Deller from Canterbury Cathedral to sing solos in Purcell odes, gave performances of Monteverdi's Vespers (1610) and Stravinsky's Les noces, and recorded Tallis's 40-part motet Spem in alium.

Tippett's pacifism led him to issue a statement rejecting war and affirming the right of artists not to be conscripted. He registered as a conscientious objector, but refused to accept a condition that would have required his giving up his work at Morley College. His friends and admirers, among them Vaughan Williams, tried to dissuade him but he stood firm. In June 1943 Tippett was sentenced to three months at Wormwood Scrubs. His immediate cell neighbours were a rapist and a murderer. He sewed mailbags, studied Bach's The Art of Fugue and assisted the small prison orchestra. When he was released he felt he had "come home". For his mother it was her "proudest moment".^[38]

In 1943 Tippett met Benjamin Britten and his partner, the tenor Peter Pears. He invited them to perform at Morley College and they stayed at his home at Oxted. The cantata Boyhood's End, composed for Britten and Pears, reflected a common interest in Purcell. When Tippett showed him the score of A Child of Our Time Britten was enthusiastic about the work and urged him to get it performed.^[39] The premiere took place on 19 March 1944 at Adelphi Theatre. Pears was one of the soloists and Goehr conducted. The reaction of the critics was mostly favourable. Glock, writing in The Observer, declared it "the most moving and important work written by an English musician for many years".^[40] Performances in Europe followed and made a profound impact.

1945–59[link]

Two major works followed the success of A Child of Our Time. The First Symphony was given its first performance in 1945, conducted by Sargent, while the Third Quartet was premiered in 1946 by the Zorian Quartet. Tippett was meanwhile planning what was to be his biggest and most personal statement to date, the opera The Midsummer Marriage. Uncommissioned, it took six years to write and placed severe physical and emotional demands on its composer. The libretto was Tippett's own. Other works from this period are the Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles, commissioned in 1948 by the BBC, the song-cycle The Heart's Assurance, written in memory of Francesca Allinson and first performed in 1951 by Britten and Pears, and the 1953 Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli. Now one of Tippett's most popular and frequently performed works, it attracted criticism at the time. Sargent refused to conduct the first performance as he thought it overburdened with notes. He told Tippett's publisher Howard Hartog that his "one interest" was "removing all this intellectualism from English music".^[41] The Times thought it too complex and difficult to listen to: "The excessive complexity of the contrapuntal writing in the earlier part of the work defeated its own ends; there was so much going on that the perplexed ear knew not where to turn or fasten itself."^[42]

Denigration of Tippett reached a climax with the first production of The Midsummer Marriage at Covent Garden in 1955. Many of the critics attacked the libretto as obscure or even incomprehensible.^[2] It was claimed that the cast were in confusion about the plot.^{[n 2]} The music, however, was more warmly received. Subsequent productions and recordings have won the opera widespread admiration: the 1968 LP recording sold 3,750 copies in its first week of sale in the United States.^[43]

Controversy also surrounded the premieres of two other major works of the 1950s, the Piano Concerto (1955) and the Second Symphony (1957). The concerto was declared unplayable by its appointed soloist, Julius Katchen, and he was replaced by Louis Kentner. At the symphony's first performance, the music broke down a few minutes into the first movement and the performance had to be restarted. Sir Adrian Boult, conducting, told the audience that he was to blame. It later transpired that the orchestra's leader had altered the bowing of the string parts to make them more readable, and in so doing obliterated the natural off-beat phrasing that Tippett had carefully notated. Tippett received support when the conductor John Barbirolli, himself a string player, approved the original notation of the parts.^[44]

1960–76[link]

Tippett's second opera King Priam was produced by the Royal Opera in 1962 as part of the festival to mark the opening of the new Coventry Cathedral. The following night Britten's War Requiem had its premiere. This time there was less criticism of the libretto, which Tippett had extracted from the epic poems of Homer, than of the music. In contrast to the radiant lyricism of The Midsummer Marriage, the sound-world was stark and austere, with notable use of brass and percussion. The terseness of the libretto was reflected in a new intensity, economy, and fragmentation. A similar approach can be seen in other works from this period: the Second Piano Sonata (1962), the Concerto for Orchestra (1963) and The Vision of Saint Augustine (1965).

In 1960 Tippett moved into a house in Corsham, Wiltshire with his partner Karl Hawker, a young painter. Hawker and he had previously been living in somewhat strained circumstances with Tippett's mother in an old manor-house in Wadhurst, Sussex.^[45] He took up a post as music adviser at the nearby Bath Academy of Art and invited young composers to his house, including Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, Alexander Goehr. From the mid-1960s until the early 1970s, Tippett had a close relationship with the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra (LSSO), conducting them regularly in the UK and on tour in Europe. For them he composed The Shires Suite, one of his most accessible works.^[46] He found time to serve on the music committee of the British Council and on the advisory panel to the BBC. His services to music were recognised by the award of a CBE in 1959 and a knighthood in 1966.

Tippett's first visit to America in 1965 was a watershed in his life and work.^[47] Invited as guest composer to the music festival in Aspen, Colorado, he loved the wide open landscapes and the warmth and candour of the young Americans he met. The experience changed him and his music. The most immediate impact was on the shaping of the libretto for his third opera, The Knot Garden. Set in a modern city garden, its complex tangle of relationships and open exploration of sexuality are clearly influenced by 1960s American theatre and cinema.^[48] Musically, the opera draws on Tippett's love of jazz and blues, and the orchestra line-up includes electric guitar and drums. A striking feature is the use of novel, quasi-cinematic musical 'dissolves' and cross-cutting forward and back in time. The first production was directed by Peter Hall at Covent Garden in 1970 and revived in 1972. Also in 1972, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) by the University of Bath.^[49]

Tippett continued to confront both personal and public demons in his Third Symphony of 1973. The finale, quoting from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, contains settings of his own texts that attempt to find a response to the horrors of the Holocaust. Here, as in A Child of Our Time, Tippett turns to the blues for spiritual and emotional solace, and in his writing for solo soprano achieved perhaps his most successful and moving tribute to Bessie Smith, an artist he had long admired.

1977–98[link]

The final two decades of Tippett's life saw no decline in his creative energy. The Third Symphony was quickly followed by a Fourth. Commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and first performed by them in 1977 under Georg Solti, its one-movement form encompasses the traditional four-movements of the classical symphony. Tippett described it as a 'birth to death' piece. Chamber works from the 1970s include the Third Piano Sonata, first performed by Paul Crossley at the 1973 Bath Festival (Tippett was artistic director of the festival from 1969–1974) and the Fourth String Quartet, premiered by the Lindsay String Quartet at Bath in 1979. These artists were among a growing number whose committed advocacy of the composer helped his music to reach a wider audience. Chief among them was the conductor Colin Davis. His recordings of the four symphonies, operas and choral works have set a benchmark for all later interpretations.

The Ice Break, Tippett's fourth opera, was beset by production difficulties. At its Covent Garden premiere in 1977 it received a mixed reception. The libretto was attacked for its use of contemporary slang and the plot, featuring race riots and a psychedelic 'trip', was held by some to be sensational.^[50] Further productions have strengthened the work's reputation, but it remains one of the least-performed of Tippett's major works.

From 1970 onward Tippett experienced health problems. His eyesight grew worse as a result of macular dystrophy and he began to need special large-sized manuscript paper to see the notes. With the help of his musical amanuensis Michael Tillett and his personal assistant, travelling companion and close friend Meirion Bowen^[51] he was able to complete his later scores. A move to a modern house in the middle of rolling fields near Calne in Wiltshire gave Tippett the privacy he wanted, as well as providing a setting for him to entertain his many friends and musical admirers. His relationship with Karl Hawker had greatly deteriorated by the time of the move. Hawker left to live in London and in 1984 he committed suicide.^[52]

Tippett's music increased greatly in popularity during the 1970s, thanks in part to the recordings made by Philips. His seventieth birthday in January 1975 coincided with the showing on British television of the film Akenfield, which made prominent use of the Fantasia Concertante on a theme of Corelli.^{[n 3]} In the United States his music was becoming widely known and performed, and he began to attract a following among young musicians: he was amused when four students turned up in Chicago in 1974 wearing 'Turn on to Tippett' T-shirts.^[54] A score of British Universities awarded him honorary doctorates, and further official recognition came with the award in 1983 of the Order of Merit.

After writing the gamelan-inspired Triple Concerto of 1979, Tippett concentrated on the composition of The Mask of Time, a large-scale, ambitious choral piece that was in some ways a summation of his life's work. Commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, its European premiere at the 1984 Proms was relayed on BBC television. The vast scope of the text, itself almost an anthropological survey taking in creation myths, world religions and man's impact on the planet, impressed critics and listeners alike, as did the similarly eclectic score. A series of world tours had inspired Tippett to extend his musical vocabulary to include exotic percussion and wordless choral effects.

Le Lac Rose (Lake Retba), Senegal

A less favourable reception was given to his last opera, New Year. At its Houston premiere in 1989 audiences were unimpressed by the futuristic space-age electronic sound effects and jokey subtitles.^[55] It fared better at Glyndebourne in 1990, but Tippett's bleak vision of 'Terror Town', where the sole unifying ritual is the singing of Auld Lang Syne at the turn of the year, surprised and disturbed those who perhaps missed the astonishing youthful energy and inventiveness of the music. Tippett completed three more works in his late eighties: the Fifth String Quartet, Byzantium for soprano and orchestra and his final luminous orchestral masterpiece, The Rose Lake, inspired by a visit to Lake Retba in Senegal in 1990. In 1996, Tippett moved from Wiltshire to London. In late 1997, while in Stockholm for a retrospective of his concert music, he developed pneumonia. Tippett died on 8 January 1998 in his west London home, six days after his ninety-third birthday.^[56]

Legacy[link]

In 1979 Tippett set up The Michael Tippett Musical Foundation,^[57] a charitable trust whose initial income derived from the sale of most of his autograph manuscripts to the British Library.^[58]

Among those composers who have acknowledged Tippett as an influence on their work are Mark-Anthony Turnage, David Matthews, William Mathias, Steve Martland, and Edward Cowie.

The Michael Tippett Centre located on Bath Spa University's Newton Park campus was opened by Tippett himself and is now part of the University's music department. It also acts as a hub for local residents and students with concerts and shows regularly performed there.

Music[link]

Influences[link]

Tippett assimilated many influences, from 16th century church music and madrigals, Purcell, Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Sibelius, Hindemith and Bartók to folk music, blues, jazz-rock and Balinese gamelan music, eventually finding his own highly personal and expressive style.

From the long flowing lines and subtle interplay of voices in the music of Palestrina and Byrd, he learned how to write contrapuntally. The rhythmic vitality of the English madrigal provided the model for the 'sprung' rhythms of his early works, such as the Concerto for Double String Orchestra. Purcell was a major influence, both for his idiomatic word-setting and his expressive use of dissonance and 'false relations' to convey anguish – this last being a common factor in the music of other 17th century composers, especially Monteverdi and Dowland.^[59] Such non-functional harmony is characteristic too of the 'wrong-note' style of Stravinsky in the 1920s, as well as the 'blue' notes of jazz. Bach was less an inspiration than a mentor for Tippett, who was more drawn to the dramatic flair of Handel.^[59] Nevertheless he applied himself diligently to the study of Bach's fugues under Morris, a discipline which enabled him to write fugally with confident mastery. Beethoven remained a major obsession throughout his life. His influence can be seen principally in the symphonies and chamber works. The dynamic energy of Beethoven, the dramatic ebb and flow of his music and his use of strongly contrasting, even opposing elements to create a musical argument are all characteristic of Tippett's music.^[60] He described his Third Piano Sonata as his "late Beethoven sonata",^[61] and in the finale of the Third Symphony paid direct homage by quoting the opening bars of the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

A feature of many of Tippett's early works is their use of irregular rhythms and pulse or 'additive rhythm'. This can be traced to a number of sources including folksongs of the British Isles. A parallel can be found in the work of Stravinsky and Bartok, both of whom were inspired by the rhythms of folk music. Harmonically, both of these composers (and Hindemith) made use of harmonies based on the interval of a fourth^[62] – known as 'quartal' – to replace the classic 'functional' harmony that had been around since at least 1600. Chords built up in fourths (or fifths) feature in many of Tippett's works, an example being the opening of the Piano Concerto.^[63]

Stylistic development[link]

Unlike his near contemporaries Walton and Britten, Tippett was slow to mature. Having found his musical voice, it continued to develop throughout his career. In the process his music went through several changes of style; the most dramatic and far-reaching of these was associated with the composition of his second opera King Priam. A different kind of change occurred after he visited in America in 1965. The impact of American culture, landscapes and people all pointed Tippett in a new direction.^[64] The immediate result was the claustrophobic, emotional hot-house of The Knot Garden, with its references to psychoanalysis, political extremism and sexual politics. Musically, the new elements were increased dissonance, complexity and the presence of electric guitar and jazz percussion in the orchestra pit. The Triple Concerto of 1979 saw a return to the melodic style of the early works, albeit with a darker orchestral palette coloured with exotic percussion. In his final years Tippett achieved a synthesis of all these elements in a richly allusive Expressionism.

Broadly speaking, Tippett's music can be seen as falling into four distinct periods. The first period (1935–47) includes the first three quartets, the Concerto for Double String Orchestra, the oratorio A Child of Our Time and the First Symphony. This period is characterised by strenuous contrapuntal energy and deeply lyrical slow movements. The second period, from then until the late 1950s, includes the opera The Midsummer Marriage, the Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli, the Piano Concerto and the Second Symphony; this period features rich textures and effervescent melody. The third period, the 1960s and early '70s, is in stark contrast, and is characterised by abrupt statements and simplicity of texture, as in the opera King Priam, the Concerto for Orchestra and the Second Piano Sonata. The fourth period is a rich mixture of all these styles, using many devices, such as quotation (from Beethoven and Mussorgsky, among others). The main works of this period were the Third and Fourth Symphonies, the operas The Ice Break and New Year, and the large-scale choral work The Mask of Time.

While it is true that Tippett's music is not as obviously 'English' in style as composers of the so-called 'English pastoral school' - Vaughan Williams, Holst and Delius, and later Howells and Finzi - there is an underlying thread of nature mysticism running through it which is as English as William Blake, Samuel Palmer or John Keats.^[65] Tippett lived most of life in the English countryside. He spent his childhood in rural Suffolk, only forty miles away from Britten's home town of Lowestoft in Suffolk. In later life, his music room looked out onto the rolling Wiltshire downlands. In the words of the composer David Matthews, "There are passages in his music which evoke the 'sweet especial rural scene' as vividly as Elgar or Vaughan Williams; passages (such as the Pastorale from the Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli) perhaps redolent of the Suffolk landscape with its gently undulating horizons, wide skies and soft lights. But Tippett's music, unlike that of the previous generation, is not obviously nostalgic; there is no sense of loss, rather of a vision continually present."^[66]

Rhythm[link]

A particular feature of Tippett's early works is their rhythmic and contrapuntal energy. This is the result of a number of factors, the primary one being his use of 'additive rhythm', where irregular groupings of notes create a fluid pulse quite unlike the rigid beat of previous classical composers such as Beethoven or Brahms. A good example is the finale of the First String Quartet. The music is light, buoyant and dance-like. Many of his themes use a type of syncopation found commonly in jazz and popular song, known as 'anticipatory rhythm'. Here the stress is thrown forward onto an unstressed offbeat, as in the opening subject of the Concerto for Double String Orchestra or the spiritual 'Nobody Knows the Trouble I See, Lord' from A Child of Our Time.^[67]

Counterpoint[link]

Tippett's music derives much of its vigour, drive and energy from his contrapuntal writing. His studies with Morris gave him the confidence of a secure technique, allowing him to write polyphonic music with ease and assurance. After the First Symphony, his style became less severely linear, but his continuing love of fugue can be seen in works such as the Third String Quartet, where three out of the five movements are fugal, and the Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli. Canons are another favourite device, as shown in the introduction to the aria 'The soul of man' in A Child of Our Time, where the restlessness of the music is subtly underlined by the use of canon by inversion.

Harmony[link]

The influence on Tippett of sixteenth-century counterpoint initially led him to assert that there was not a single chord in the works of his first period.^[68] Although untrue, his preference was for a linear approach rather than melody and accompaniment. After the First Symphony there emerged three main strands to his harmonic approach: classical triadic harmony, though with an originality and freshness all his own (for example Mark's first aria in the Midsummer Marriage); modal harmony deriving from folk song, blues and Purcell, and twentieth-century experimentation with chords in fourths and fifths by Debussy, Hindemith, Stravinsky and Bartok. His style remained broadly tonal until the Second Symphony, when it embraced polytonality. From King Priam onwards, dissonance and chromaticism were to the fore, resulting in what some writers have called 'free atonality' or 'pantonality.'^[69]

Melody[link]

Tippett had a lifelong fascination with folksong and dance. As a young man, he loved the Skye Boat Song and the Londonderry Air, and was struck not only by their direct emotional appeal but by their melodic construction and careful placing of climaxes.^[70] Asked by a group of music students in Boston which twentieth-century composer he most admired, he replied, "Gershwin: because in an age of experimentation with rhythm...Gershwin kept song alive.^[71] In the "Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles (1948), Tippett reworked folk-like melodies from his earlier ballad opera Robin Hood. He also used the Scottish hymn tune Crimond, a traditional French cradle song, an Irish version of the fertility dance-tune "All Around My Hat" and a reference to the English folksong "Early One Morning". The slow movement of the First Piano Sonata is based on the Scottish folk melody "Ca the Yowes to the Knowes", as is that of the Concerto for Double String Orchestra. Other works inspired by folksong include Four Songs from the British Isles for unaccompanied choir (1956) and The Shires Suite (1970).

A different kind of folksong inspired one of Tippett's most frequently performed works. The five African-American spirituals which form the emotional core of the oratorio A Child of Our Time were chosen by the composer as a modern alternative to the traditional chorales in the Passions of Bach. Their contemporary relevance is reinforced by the emergence in the 1950s of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

Melody plays an important role in all of the works Tippett wrote in the 1930s and 1940s. The slow movement of the First String Quartet opens with "an extended arch of lyric melody" (Ian Kemp),^[72] which was a direct response to the experience of falling in love: "all that love flowed out in the slow movement of my First String Quartet, an unbroken span of lyrical music in which all four instruments sing ardently from start to finish"^[23] was Tippett's own description. The music of the 1950s is fundamentally lyric in style, though there are comparatively few long-breathed melodies; two such can be found in the Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli, and the Piano Concerto opens with a long tune for high piano and flute, creating "a sustained crescendo, thirty-three bars long leading to a sonorous tutti"(David Matthews).^[63] The fourth movement of the Second Symphony contains a passage consisting of a long arching line for unison violins (followed by 'cellos), accompanied by swirling woodwind, which the composer described as "a very long melody".^[73] Over twenty years later Tippett returned to writing melody of deceptive simplicity in the slow movement of the Triple Concerto. His final work, The Rose Lake is subtitled 'A Song without Words for orchestra'.

Compositional method[link]

From his earliest years as a composer Tippett wrote what he felt he had to write.^[74] The music emerged as the culmination of a long process of inner search and personal development. The most important example of this creative process is A Child of Our Time. His other two major choral works, The Vision of Saint Augustine (1965) and The Mask of Time (1982) had a similar genesis. In the later part of his life Tippett refused to allow commissions for concertos and other works tailor-made for specific artists to divert him from his creative goals.^[74] He seldom revised his earlier works.

After this long period of gestation, he wrote slowly but steadily. "Noting Eliot's comment that, for himself as a poet, 'the words come last', Tippett only began writing down the notes when he had a clear concept of the structure and character of the piece in question. He invariably composed straight into full score: and he always started at the beginning of the piece, continuing until he reached the end – then he stopped. Taken overall, this kind of compositional procedure is fairly unusual" (Meirion Bowen).^[74]

The composer Andrew Ford relates this revealing anecdote: "the first time I...met him, as a student composer..., he...[gave] me some very valuable advice. I had just completed a piece which was extremely complex and I was very proud of it, but then it was played and I had never heard anything so boring. For all my use of mathematical procedures, there was nothing of interest in the music. Tippett ... said, 'Just use your ears, love.'"^[75]

Criticism[link]

For a long time Tippett had to face a recurrent charge: that his music was amateurish, over-complicated and even unplayable. In the words of Ian Kemp, "[a]lthough it was acknowledged to contain fine moments, it was criticized as the work of a dilettante, weakened by a profusion of extra-musical allusion. A critical commonplace was that Tippett was straining to say something he was technically ill-equipped to do".^[76] Some of these comments may have arisen as a result of inadequate rehearsal time and unfamiliarity with Tippett's rhythmic innovations. In addition, his reluctance to analyse his own music "encouraged the view that while his verbal literacy was formidable, his musical literacy was not" (Kemp).^[77]

Writings[link]

A frequent broadcaster on the BBC Third Programme from its inception in 1946, Tippett published some of his radio talks in 1958 as a book. He called it Moving into Aquarius. The title refers to the mythical belief in the dawning of a 'new age' under the astrological sign of Aquarius^{[n 4]} The twin themes are the artist as himself and the artist in relation to society.^[78]

I have been writing music for forty years. During those years there have been huge and world-shattering events in which I have been inevitably caught up. Whether society has felt music valuable or needful I have gone on writing because I must. And I know that my true function within a society which embraces all of us, is to continue a tradition, fundamental to our civilization, which goes back into pre-history and will go forward into the unknown future. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form whether visual, intellectual or musical. For it is only through images that the inner world communicates at all. Images of the past, shapes of the future. Images of vigour for a decadent period, images of calm for one too violent. Images of reconciliation for worlds torn by division. And in an age of mediocrity and shattered dreams, images of abounding, generous, exuberant beauty.^[79]

In 1991 his autobiography Those Twentieth Century Blues was published. Among other insights, this book contains a selection of Tippett's dreams. Peter Heyworth has made the observation that the dreams' "relevance to his creative life became increasingly evident. In particular, the series of works that were to establish his reputation during and after the war and to culminate in The Midsummer Marriage...hove into view. The therapy had worked..."^[80] A final collection of the composer's writings was published in 1995 under the title Tippett on Music.

Notes and references[link]

Notes

References

Sources[link]

External links[link]

• Excerpts from audio interviews with Tippett from the BBC
• Michael Tippett's page at Schott Music Schott Music ltd.
• (French) A biography of Michael Tippett, from IRCAM's website.
• Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra website—contains articles and a few photographs of Tippett, who was their patron and conducted them regularly in the UK and Europe, as well as some interesting Tippett memorabilia
• Shires Suite—information and a short audio excerpts from various LSSO recordings
• Suite in D—information and short audio excerpts from the 1967 Pye recording
• Tippett's Midsummer Marriage—an exploration of the spiritual and psychological dimensions