7 - Legacy

Summary

It is possible to situate A Child of Our Time – particularly in its relationship to the generic conventions of the oratorio – within a continuing, specifically English, choral tradition. However, any attempt to connect specific aspects of Tippett's work with the high points of that tradition, as defined through oratorios such as Elgar's Dream of Gerontius (1899–1900) and Walton's Belshazzar's Feast (1930–1), or even such works as Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony (1903–9) or Delius's Sea Drift (1903–4), remains an elusive pursuit. If it is difficult to trace precise musical precedents, the extra-musical content of Tippett's work also resists categorisation within the English choral tradition. Even a work as evocative in its subject matter as Bliss's Morning Heroes (1930), whose concerns share some common ground with A Child of Our Time, cannot be seen to provide any direct precedent for Tippett's work.

If tracing potential precursors for A Child of Our Time within the English choral tradition is difficult, any attempt to trace its influence on areas outside Tippett's own stylistic development is equally problematic. Within this immediate context, however, it is clear that the emergent ability to fashion his own texts would have great significance, most obviously in relation to his development as a composer of operas – a development that was to come to fruition in The Midsummer Marriage (1946–52), his first opera and a work which best reflects his compositional and aesthetic concerns of the period.