FULL A Child of Our Time (Tippett) Gateshead 2024 Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Sarah Connolly, Nicky Spence, Willard White

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: A Child of Our Time   
• Composer: Tippett Michael  
• Libretto: Michael Tippett  
• Venue & Opera Company: The Glasshouse International Center for Music, Gateshead, England  
• Recorded: November 24, 2021
• Type: Concert Live
• Singers: Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Sarah Connolly, Nicky Spence, Willard White
• Conductor: Dinis Sousa  
• Orchestra: Royal Northern Sinfonia, Massed Musical Forces of the North East  
• Chorus: Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia  
• Chorus Master: Tim Burke  
• Stage Director:   
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Royal Northern Sinfonia  
• Date Published: 2024  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  
• Video Recording from: YouTube     FULL VIDEO
•  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

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.

According to Tippett’s description, “Part I of the work deals with the general state of oppression in our time. Part II presents the particular story of a young man’s attempt to seek justice by violence and the catastrophic consequences; and Part III considers the moral to be drawn, if any.” He later extended his summary to the following:

Part I: The general state of affairs in the world today as it affects all individuals, minorities, classes or races that are felt to be outside the ruling conventions. Man at odds with his Shadow (i.e. the dark side of personality).
Part II: The “Child of Our Time” appears, enmeshed in the drama of his personal fate and the elemental social forces of our day. The drama is because the forces which drive the young man prove stronger than the good advice of his uncle and aunt, as it always was and always will be.
Part III: The significance of this drama and the possible healing that would come from Man’s acceptance of his Shadow in relation to his Light.

Quoted from Wikipedia