Michael Tippett

Michael Tippett

Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE 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...

's Concerto for Double String Orchestra (1938–39) is one of the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 composer's

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 most popular and frequently performed works.

Like other works of the composer's early maturity such as the First Piano Sonata and the First String Quartet, the Concerto is characterized by rhythmic energy and a direct melodic appeal. The influence of Bartok and Stravinsky can be shown, as well as that of the 17th century English Madrigal School

English Madrigal School

The English Madrigal School was the brief but intense flowering of the musical madrigal in England, mostly from 1588 to 1627, along with the composers who produced them. The English madrigals were a cappella, predominantly light in style, and generally began as either copies or direct translations...

. From these, and from folk-song, Tippett derives his distinctive and personal technique of 'additive rhythm'. This has been described as 'a kind of rhythm the effect of which is determined by an accumulation of irregular, unpredictable accents in the music'. The composer David Matthews

David Matthews

David Matthews may refer to:* Dave Matthews , singer/guitarist of the Dave Matthews Band* David Matthews , MP for Swansea East 1919–1922* David Matthews , American bi-racial author...

 describes the effect thus: "[I]t is the rhythmic freedom of the music, its joyful liberation from orthodox notions of stress and phrase length, that contributes so much to its vitality".
By dividing the orchestra into two equal and identical sections Tippett is able to play one off against the other, using syncopation

Syncopation

In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...

 and imitation

Imitation (music)

In music, imitation is when a melody in a polyphonic texture is repeated shortly after its first appearance in a different voice, usually at a different pitch. The melody may vary through transposition, inversion, or otherwise, but retain its original character...

 to add further to the rhythmic vitality and propulsion of the music. This antiphon

Antiphon

An antiphon in Christian music and ritual, is a "responsory" by a choir or congregation, usually in Gregorian chant, to a psalm or other text in a religious service or musical work....

al effect is similar to that found in Renaissance

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

 and early Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 choral music by composers such as Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...

 and Gabrieli

Giovanni Gabrieli

Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms.-Biography:Gabrieli was born in Venice...

. The first movement (Allegro

Allegro

Allegro may refer to:* Allegro * Musical tempo meaning cheerful or brisk; see Tempo#Italian tempo markings* Allegro library, a computer game programming library* Allegro , a typeface designed in 1936...

 con brio

Con Brio

Con brio is a musical direction, meaning "with spirit" or "with vigor".Con Brio can also refer to:*Con Brio , a popular San Francisco-based band*Con Brio, Inc., a defunct synthesizer manufacturer*Con Brio Records, a defunct record label...

) is in Sonata Form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

 and contrasts a vigorous, driving theme in octaves with a more delicate, lightly scored idea on violins and cellos. The slow movement (Adagio

Adagio

-Music:* Adagio, a tempo marking indicating that music is to be played slowly* A composition marked to be played adagio, e.g.** Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber** Adagio for Strings , a cover of Barber's Adagio by Tiësto...

 cantabile

Cantabile

Cantabile is a musical term meaning literally "singable" or "songlike" . It has several meanings in different contexts. In instrumental music, it indicates a particular style of playing designed to imitate the human voice. For 18th century composers, the term is often used synonymously with...

) opens with one of Tippett's most affecting and heartfelt melodies for low solo violin, revealing the composer's deep love of Blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, especially the singing of Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...

. A fugue

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....

 offers chromatic contrast, and the movement is rounded off by a return of the opening tune on solo cello. In the rondo

Rondo

Rondo, and its French equivalent rondeau, is a word that has been used in music in a number of ways, most often in reference to a musical form, but also to a character-type that is distinct from the form...

 finale (Allegro molto) Tippett uses a theme based on a Northumbria

Northumbria

Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

n bagpipe tune to bring the work to an exciting and uplifting climax.

As in the 1941 oratorio

Oratorio

An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

 A Child of Our Time

A Child of Our Time

A Child of Our Time is an oratorio written by Michael Tippett between 1939 and 1941."After more than ten years of thoughtful planning, Michael Tippett summed up his musical, political, spiritual and philosophical beliefs in his first oratorio, A Child of Our Time...

and the Symphony No. 3 of 1973, Tippett's humanitarian concerns are clearly evidenced in his use of melodies deriving from, and referring to, folk and popular

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

musical sources.

The tonality

• Modal

Tippet uses tonal centres (but they are not related eg. A and A flat) e.g. the tonal centre of A bars 1-20

Textures

• There are various textures used throughout the piece. Bars 1-8 is a two-part counterpoint; there is also inverted imitation in bars 8-10. Bars 21-30 is melody-dominated homophony. There is an arpeggio accompaniment from Nar 30 onwards.

Structure

When the piece starts it sounds like ritornello form, but it is actually in sonata form.

• Exposition: has 2 themes-

Theme 1- bars 1-20

Theme 2- bars 33-67

• Development:

Development is bars 68-128

• Recapitulation:

Main Themes again both based in A

• Finishes Coda

bars 194-232

Melody

• The melody is based on motifs, e.g. the opening oscillating quaver pattern, bars 21 onwards this is used as an accompaniment.
• The second motif is then in Orchestra 2 - bars 1-4
• Other motifs include the 'trill' motif bar 22-23

Harmony

• Dissonant e.g. 51, but tonal.
• Some chord based bars 33-35
• Use of some recognisable harmonic features eg bar 20-21 a Phrygian cadence (IVb-V in a minor key)

Rhythm

• Use of syncopation, e.g. bars 68-70
• Use of additive rhythm.

Quaver used as a building block for different rhythmic patterns eg bar 15.