FULL A Child of Our Time (Tippett) London 2024 Pumeza Matshikiza, Lily Mo Browne, Zwakele Tshabalala, Jonathan Lemalu
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: A Child of Our Time
- Composer: Tippett Michael
- Libretto: Michael Tippett
- Venue & Opera Company: Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, Royal College of Music, London, UK
- Recorded: November 1, 2021
- Type: Concert Live
- Singers: Pumeza Matshikiza, Lily Mo Browne, Zwakele Tshabalala, Jonathan Lemalu
- Conductor: Martyn Brabbins
- Orchestra: RCM Symphony Orchestra
- Chorus: RCM Symphony Chorus
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Royal College of Music
- Date Published: 2024
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
PROGRAMME:
Bruch
Violin Concerto no 1 in G minor op 26
Tippett
A Child of Our Time
A Child of Our Time is a secular oratorio by the British composer Michael Tippett, who also wrote the libretto. Composed between 1939 and 1941, it was first performed at the Adelphi Theatre, London, on 19 March 1944. The work was inspired by events that profoundly affected Tippett: the assassination of a German diplomat by a young Jewish refugee in 1938, and the Nazi government’s reaction to the assassination which was in the form of a violent pogrom against Germany’s Jewish population: Kristallnacht. Tippett’s oratorio deals with these incidents in the context of the experiences of all oppressed people, and it carries a strongly pacifistic message of ultimate understanding and reconciliation. The text’s recurrent themes of shadow and light reflect the Jungian psychoanalysis which Tippett underwent in the years immediately before he wrote the work.
The oratorio uses a traditional three-part format based on that of Handel’s Messiah, and is structured in the manner of Bach’s Passions. The work’s most original feature is Tippett’s use of African-American spirituals, which carry out the role allocated by Bach to chorales. Tippett justified this innovation on the grounds that these songs of oppression possess a universality absent from traditional hymns. A Child of Our Time was well received on its first performance, and has since been performed all over the world in many languages. A number of recorded versions are available, including one conducted by Tippett when he was 86 years old.
Quoted from Wikipedia