Tippett: King Priam

Opera 80

Tippett: King Priam

Soloists

London Sinfonietta

David Atherton

I’ve know the music of Michael Tippett since school days - the 2nd string quartet was the first piece of his that I remember hearing. I tried to hear as much of his late music as possible as it came out - I saw The Ice Break at Covent Garden and The Mask of Time at the Proms. I also recall listening to the first broadcasts of String Quartet no 5, The Triple concerto and The Rose Lake. I think that The Midsummer Marriage is one of the great 20th century operas - as for New Year, which I listened to in last year’s project, the jury is still out.

That leaves King Priam. Rather to my surprise I realised that I had never heard the whole work before - the beginning was very familiar as was the war cry at the end of the 2nd act, but much of the rest I had read about and seen the musical examples in the various books about Tippett but hearing it was a new experience.

Priam is the work in which Tippett moved away from the lyricism of The Midsummer Marriage and the concerto for double string orchestra into something much more hard edged. The influence of Stravinsky, especially Agon, is very apparent both in the actual sound of the music but also its mosaic structure. I found it a fascinating work. To me some of it didn’t work. There was too much instrumental ‘doodling’ which didn’t really add anything and the impossible string writing passagework associated with Hecuba seems almost embarrassing. But the material which does work - which is in truth most of it - makes a huge impact. The very start is one of the most arresting openings in all opera and some of the war-like music has real dramatic intensity. But the reflective music also has an eloquence all of its own - I’m thinking here about the song Achilles sings with guitar accompaniment and the wonderful trio for the three main female characters in Act 2.

When I was a student it was almost an article of faith that posterity would see Tippett and not Britten as the major British composer of the second half of the 20th century. That didn’t happen and I can’t see that it ever will. Tippett is such a wildly erratic musical personality but at his best he does belong at the top table. I’ve been rereading the fascinating biography of him by Oliver Soden which is full of insights into a very rich life. Tippett almost dropped completely out of the repertoire after his death but there are signs , mainly though recordings, that there is something of a revival of his music. Let’s hope that that continues.