| Our re-release of the 1992 recording of Tippett’s A Child of Our Time is Disc of the Month in this new wave of additions to Chandos’ ongoing Hickox Legacy series. Recreating in contemporary terms a traditional form in Western music, one that goes back to the Lutheran Passions of J.S. Bach and the great Old and New Testament oratories of Handel, and drawing on the familiar musico-dramatic conventions of the genre – recitative, aria, ensemble, chorus, chorale, and the continuous presence of the orchestra – Tippett both re-affirms and transforms the genre. The most striking and brilliant transformation is the composer’s choice of the Negro Spiritual in place of the congregational hymn. This oratorio, composed between 1939 and 1941 and premiered in 1944, was born out of a very personal sense of human deprivation and hardship; during the hard times in England in the thirties Tippett had shared his choral craft with community workers, and during the war he inspired unemployed professional musicians and amateurs as a choral and orchestral conductor at Morley College. |
| Michael Tippett (1905-1998) A Child of Our Time 73:17 Part I 24:00 1 1 Chorus: 'The world turns on its dark side' 5:00 2 2 The Argument. Alto: 'Man has measured the heavens with a telescope' - 3:04 Interludium 3 3 Scena. Chorus, Alto: 'Is evil then good?' 3:07 4 4 Bass (The Narrator): 'Now in each nation there were some cast out ' - 1:11 5 5 Chorus of the Oppressed: 'When shall the userers' city cease ?' 2:11 6 6 Tenor: 'I have no money for my bread' 3:26 7 7 Soprano: 'How can I cherish my man in such days ?' - 3:34 8 8 A Spiritual. Chorus, Soprano, Tenor: 'Steal away' 2:29 Part II 24:00 9 9 Chorus: 'A star rises in mid-winter' - 3:40 10 10 Bass (The Narrator): 'And a time came ' 0:17 11 11 Double Chorus of Persecutors and Persecuted: 'Away with them!' - 0:57 12 12 Bass (The Narrator): 'Where they could, they fled from the terror' - 0:22 13 13 Chorus of the Self-righteous: 'We cannot have them in our Empire' - 0:49 14 14 Bass (The Narrator): 'And the boy's mother wrote a letter ' 0:14 15 15 Scena. Solo Quartet (Mother, Aunt, Boy, Uncle): 'O my son!' - 1:29 16 16 A Spiritual. Chorus, Soprano, Tenor: 'Nobody 1:17 knows the trouble I see, Lord' 17 17 Scena. Bass (The Narrator), Alto: 'The boy becomes 1:32 desperate in his agony' 18 18 Bass (The Narrator): 'They took a terrible vengeance' - 0:33 19 19 The Terror. Chorus: 'Burn down their houses!' - 1:02 20 20 Bass (The Narrator): 'Men were ashamed of what was done' - 0:37 21 21 A Spiritual of Anger. Chorus, Bass: 'Go down, Moses' 3:28 22 22 The boy sings in his prison. Tenor: 'My dreams are 3:44 all shattered in ghastly reality' - 23 23 Soprano (The Mother): 'What have I done to you, my son?' 1:39 24 24 Alto: 'The dark forces rise like a flood' - 1:04 25 25 A Spiritual. Chorus, Soprano: 'O, by and by' 1:22 Part III 25:03 26 26 Chorus: 'The cold deepens' 5:34 27 27 Alto: 'The soul of man is impassioned ' 2:19 28 28 Scena. Bass, Chorus: 'The world of wisdom are these' - 6:52 Preludium 29 29 General Ensemble. Chorus, Soloists: I would 6:16 know my shadow and my light' - 30 30 A Spiritual. Chorus, Soloists: 'Deep river' 4:07 |