THis first opera, A Midsummer Wedding, completed in 1952, marked a major turning point in Michael Tippett's development. The works that followed in the 1950s gradually moved away from the lyricism of opera's excesses in favor of leaner, more evocative language, and two of Tippett's best orchestral works, 1953-1955 The Piano Concerto and Symphony No. 2, which were composed over the course of 2008, were completed. It followed two years later and marked an important stage in its stylistic change.
Neither is Tippett's most famous work. Several versions of each have been recorded, including an early version of the concerto. stephen osborne One of the symphonic performances conducted by Tippett himself as a soloist. But these two works, which bring together first-class recordings of concerts conducted by Edward Gardner at London's Royal Festival Hall in 2023 (Concerto) and 2024, highlight the changes in Tippett's musical language. are. Even in the piano concerto, the lyrical episodes have a hard, crystalline edge, and even that disappears almost completely in the symphony.
The balance between recorded piano and orchestra is not always ideal. It's a flute solo rather than piano that dominates the opening bars, and then there are a few moments where Osborne's wonderfully crisp and clear playing doesn't come forward as much as you'd like. But elsewhere the concerto is full of detail, and in the finale, we look back one last time at the “midsummer wedding ritual dance,” but the musical energy is just as strong as the second symphony (perhaps Tippett (the most consistent form of the work) is brilliantly performed by Gardner and his orchestra.
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