Which British composer wrote 'The Midsummer Marriage' and `The Knot Garden'?
"crowd as the sun rises. The dawn reveals that the buildings were never more than ruins. The Midsummer Marriage The Midsummer Marriage is an opera in three acts, with music and libretto by Michael Tippett. The work's first performance was at Covent Garden, 27 January 1955, conducted by John Pritchard. The reception of the opera was controversial, over perceived confusion as to the libretto and Tippett's use of symbols and psychological references. Nonetheless the opera has received at least ten more productions, including two further productions at the Royal Opera, in England, Wales, Scotland, Germany, Sweden and the United States."
"Michael Tippett Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as one of the leading British composers of the 20th century. Among his best-known works are the oratorio ""A Child of Our Time"", the orchestral ""Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli"", and the opera ""The Midsummer Marriage"". Tippett's talent developed slowly. He withdrew or destroyed his earliest compositions, and was 30 before any of his works were published."
"Piano Concerto (Tippett) British composer Michael Tippett composed his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra between 1953 and 1955 on a commission from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The overall character of the work was influenced by the composer's hearing German pianist Walter Gieseking rehearse Ludwig van Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto in 1950. Its musical content, while influenced by this concerto, was also shaped largely by Tippett's opera ""The Midsummer Marriage"", which he had completed in 1952. While Tippett had conceived the work initially in the mid-1940s, he had been preoccupied in much of the intervening time with ""The Midsummer"
"were increasingly devoted to his first major opera, ""The Midsummer Marriage"". During the six years from 1946 he composed almost no other music, apart from the ""Birthday Suite for Prince Charles"" (1948). The musical and philosophical ideas behind the opera had begun in Tippett's mind several years earlier. The story, which he wrote himself, charts the fortunes of two contrasting couples in a manner which has brought comparisons with Mozart's ""The Magic Flute"". The strain of composition, combined with his continuing responsibilities at Morley and his BBC work, affected Tippett's health and slowed progress. Following the death in 1949 of"
"wrote a song cycle for tenor and piano, ""The Heart's Assurance"". This work, a long-delayed tribute to Francesca Allinson (who had committed suicide in 1945), was performed by Britten and Pears at the Wigmore Hall on 7 May 1951. ""The Midsummer Marriage"" was finished in 1952, after which Tippett arranged some of the music as a concert suite, the ""Ritual Dances"", performed in Basel, Switzerland, in April 1953. The opera itself was staged at Covent Garden on 27 January 1955. The lavish production, with costumes and stage designs by Barbara Hepworth and choreography by John Cranko, perplexed the opera-going public"
"part of his musical signature. This approach to metre and rhythm is derived in part from Bartók and Stravinsky but also from the English madrigalists. Sympathy with the past, observed by Colin Mason in an early appraisal of the composer's work, was at the root of the neoclassicism that is a feature of Tippett's music, at least until the Second Symphony (1957). In terms of tonality, Tippett shifted his ground in the course of his career. His earlier works, up to ""The Midsummer Marriage"", are key-centred, but thereafter he moved through bitonality into what the composer Charles Fussell has summarised"
"idea of attempting a verse drama by reading Eliot's plays, and he corresponded with the poet with an eye to collaborating on the libretto for his opera, tackling the job himself when Eliot declined. The Royal Opera House has mounted three productions of ""The Midsummer Marriage"", in 1955, 1968 and 1996. The 1996 production was revived in 2005, to mark the centenary of Tippett's birth. The lavish original (1955) production had costumes and stage designs by Barbara Hepworth and choreography by John Cranko. In 1976 Welsh National Opera staged a production designed by Annena Stubbs, that they toured in cities"
"to Britain. An organ on which Mendelssohn gave recitals of the ""Wedding March"", among other works, is housed in St Ann's Church in Tottenham. Franz Liszt wrote a virtuoso transcription of the ""Wedding March and Dance of the Elves"" (S. 410) in 1849-50. Vladimir Horowitz transcribed the Wedding March into a virtuoso showpiece for piano and played it as an encore at his concerts. Wedding March (Mendelssohn) Felix Mendelssohn's ""Wedding March"" in C major, written in 1842, is one of the best known of the pieces from his suite of incidental music (Op. 61) to Shakespeare's play ""A Midsummer Night's"
"American experiences had a significant effect on the music he composed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with jazz and blues elements particularly evident in his third opera, ""The Knot Garden"" (1966–69), and in the Symphony No. 3 (1970–72). At home in 1969, Tippett worked with the conductor Colin Davis to rescue the Bath International Music Festival from a financial crisis, and became the festival's artistic director for the following five seasons. In 1970, following the collapse of his relationship with Hawker, he left Corsham and moved to a secluded house on the Marlborough Downs. Among the works he"
"George Butterworth George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC (12 July 18855 August 1916) was an English composer who was best known for the orchestral idyll ""The Banks of Green Willow"" and his song settings of A. E. Housman's poems from ""A Shropshire Lad"". Butterworth was born in Paddington, London. Soon after his birth, his family moved to York so that his father Sir Alexander Kaye Butterworth could take up an appointment as general manager of the North Eastern Railway, which was based there. Their home was at Riseholme, a house on Driffield Terrace, which later became part of the Mount School."
"Marriage"". The Piano Concerto was the result of one of Tippett's most complex creative cycles. The events that initiated the cycle contributed to its conceptual dimensions and date back to January 1950 when he was deep into the compositional process for ""The Midsummer Marriage"". Echoes of the opera resonate throughout Concerto while two other previous compositions: the Fantasia on a Theme of Handel (1939–41) and the First Symphony (1944-5) figure prominently in the creative cycle as well. The Concerto was originally intended for Noel Mewton-Wood, who had assisted Tippett in playing back portions of the piano reduction of The Midsummer"
"well-received BBC broadcast in 1963, did much to rescue Tippett's reputation and establish him as a leading figure among British composers. As earlier with ""The Midsummer Marriage"", the compositions that followed ""King Priam"" retained the musical idiom of the opera, notably the Piano Sonata No. 2 (1962) and the Concerto for Orchestra (1963), the latter written for the Edinburgh Festival and dedicated to Britten for his 50th birthday. Tippett's main work in the mid-1960s was the cantata ""The Vision of Saint Augustine"", commissioned by the BBC, which Bowen marks as a peak of Tippett's compositional career: ""Not since ""The Midsummer"
"Felix Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 1809 4 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early romantic period. Mendelssohn wrote symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano music and chamber music. His best-known works include his Overture and incidental music for ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"", the ""Italian Symphony"", the ""Scottish Symphony"", the overture ""The Hebrides"", his mature Violin Concerto, and his String Octet. His ""Songs Without Words"" are his most famous solo piano compositions. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and antisemitism"
"Cecil Sharp Three roads are named after Butterworth: George Butterworth George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC (12 July 18855 August 1916) was an English composer who was best known for the orchestral idyll ""The Banks of Green Willow"" and his song settings of A. E. Housman's poems from ""A Shropshire Lad"". Butterworth was born in Paddington, London. Soon after his birth, his family moved to York so that his father Sir Alexander Kaye Butterworth could take up an appointment as general manager of the North Eastern Railway, which was based there. Their home was at Riseholme, a house on Driffield Terrace,"
"A Midsummer Night's Dream A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy written by William Shakespeare in 1595/96. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, the former queen of the Amazons. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors (the mechanicals) who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world. The play consists of four"
"Edward MacDowell Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860January 23, 1908) was an American composer and pianist of the late Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites ""Woodland Sketches, Sea Pieces"" and ""New England Idylls"". ""Woodland Sketches"" includes his most popular short piece, ""To a Wild Rose"". In 1904 he was one of the first seven Americans honored by membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Edward MacDowell was born in New York City to Thomas MacDowell, a Manhattan milk dealer, and Frances (Fanny) Mary Knapp. He received his first piano"
"Midsummer Night's Dream"" (1826) and ""The Hebrides"" (1830). Eventually, composers built bigger gardens, otherwise known as symphonic poems. In these new, looser and more flexible musical forms, large-scale orchestral writing could be combined with strong emotions and brilliant timbres to fulfill a wide range of extra-musical demands. Tchaikovsky's opening entry for his diary of 1872 reads as follows: Yesterday, on the road from Vorozhba to Kiev, music came singing and echoing through my head after a long interval of silence. A theme in embryo, in B-flat major, took possession of my mind and almost led me on to attempt a"
"Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Opera Theatre Company. Virginia Kerr Virginia Kerr (born 14 May 1954) is a prominent Irish soprano who appears frequently in concerts, opera, oratorio and recitals. She has sung with many of the world's leading orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, The Hallé and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. Her operatic and concert performances have also taken her to Far East, Russia and North and South America. At the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden she has sung the roles of Jennifer in ""The Midsummer Marriage"", Frau"
"three times. His first marriage was to Maureen Parsonage, in 1958, and produced two daughters. His second marriage, to Susan Pilgrim in 1969, also produced two daughters. His first two marriages ended in divorce. He married his third wife, Allison Powell, in 1994, and the couple had a son and two daughters. His third wife and all seven of his children survive him. David Bedford David Vickerman Bedford (4 August 1937 – 1 October 2011) was an English composer and musician. He wrote and played both popular and classical music. He was the brother of the conductor Steuart Bedford and"
"and species of man as created both in him and in all men generally."" Purcell also had a strong influence on the composers of the English musical renaissance of the early 20th century, most notably Benjamin Britten, who created and performed a realisation of ""Dido and Aeneas"" and whose ""The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra"" is based on a theme from Purcell's ""Abdelazar"". Stylistically, the aria ""I know a bank"" from Britten's opera ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"" is clearly inspired by Purcell's aria ""Sweeter than Roses"", which Purcell originally wrote as part of incidental music to Richard Norton's ""Pausanias,"
"""Midsomer Rhapsody"". Richard Cameron (writer) Richard Cameron (born 16 June 1948) is an English playwright from Doncaster . His themes are Northern post-industrial society, working class life, tough women and violent men. Cameron's plays include ""Pond Life"" (1992), ""Not Fade Away"" (1993), ""The Mortal Ash"" (1994), ""Almost Grown"" (1994), ""All of You Mine"" (1996), ""The Glee Club"" (2002), ""Gong Donkeys"" (2004), ""Flower Girls"" (2007), and ""Can't Stand Up For Falling Down"". Cameron wrote ""Dear Nobody"" starring Sean Maguire, and ""Stone, Scissors, Paper"" for BBC (1997). He has also contributed to the popular TV series Midsomer Murders, writing the script for"
"of the Royal Northern College of Music. Andrew Shore Andrew Shore, (born 30 September 1952) is an English operatic baritone. Shore was born in Oldham, Lancashire. He studied at the University of Bristol, the Royal Northern College of Music and the London Opera Centre. In 1976 he married Fiona Macdonald; they have three daughters. Shore sang with Opera For All from 1977 to 1979. In 1979 he joined Kent Opera, for whom over the next six years he played ""buffo"" roles such as Antonio the gardener in ""The Marriage of Figaro"" and Dr Bartolo in ""The Barber of Seville"". For"
"Wedding March (Mendelssohn) Felix Mendelssohn's ""Wedding March"" in C major, written in 1842, is one of the best known of the pieces from his suite of incidental music (Op. 61) to Shakespeare's play ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"". It is one of the most frequently used wedding marches, generally being played on a church pipe organ. At weddings in many Western countries, this piece is commonly used as a recessional, though frequently stripped of its episodes in this context. It is frequently teamed with the ""Bridal Chorus"" from Richard Wagner's opera ""Lohengrin"", or with Jeremiah Clarke's ""Prince of Denmark's March"", both"
"be thought of as congregational hymns, but as integral parts of the Oratorio; nor should they be sentimentalised but sung with a strong underlying beat and slightly 'swung. In Tippett's Symphony No. 1 (1945), his only large-scale work between ""A Child of Our Time"" and ""The Midsummer Marriage"", his ""gift for launching a confident flow of sharply characterized, contrapuntally combined ideas"" is acknowledged by Whittall. The same critic found the symphony's quality uneven, and the orchestral writing weaker than in the Double Concerto. Whittall offers nearly unqualified praise for ""The Midsummer Marriage"", a view largely echoed by Mellers, who saw"
"was the conductor in a performance of Michael Tippett's ""The Midsummer Marriage"" in 1984 for Thames Television. In 1988 he was the conductor in a performance of Benjamin Britten's opera ""Billy Budd"" for the BBC and in 1995 he was the conductor in the English National Opera performance of Britten's opera ""Peter Grimes"" for the BBC. Atherton married Ann Gianetta Drake in 1970, with whom he had three children, two daughters and a son. The couple separated in 1983. In 2012, he married his companion of 27 years, violinist Eleanor Ann Roth. His sister Joan is a freelance violinist who"
"Richard Addinsell Richard Stewart Addinsell (13 January 190414 November 1977) was an English composer, best known for film music, primarily his ""Warsaw Concerto"", composed for the 1941 film ""Dangerous Moonlight"" (also known under the later title ""Suicide Squadron""). Richard Addinsell was born in Woburn Square, London, to William Arthur Addinsell, who was a chartered accountant, and his wife, Annie Beatrice Richards. The younger of two brothers, Addinsell was educated at home before attending Hertford College, Oxford, to study Law but went down after just 18 months. He then became interested in music. In 1925, he enrolled at the Royal College"
"Peter Knight (composer) Peter Knight (23 June 1917 – 30 July 1985) was an English musical arranger, conductor and composer. Knight was born in Exmouth, Devon, England. He worked with Independent Television light entertainment stars from "" 'Spot The Tune' "" (1956) with Jackie Rae and Marion Ryan to the comedy series "" 'Home to Roost' "" (1985). He also composed the scores to the feature films ""Curse of the Crimson Altar"" (1968, Boris Karloff) and ""Sunstruck"" (1972, Harry Secombe). In between, the highlights of his career were perhaps: After producing countless vocal scores, Peter Knight was commissioned to produce"
"artist and composer Thomas Oliphant, who wrote the words of ""Deck the Hall(s) with Boughs of Holly"", ""Men of Harlech"", ""The Ash Grove"" and accomplished many other works, including cataloguing the manuscript music at the British Museum and writing the chorale for the wedding of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. Oliphant was born 17 November 1793, the third of seven children. He was educated at the preparatory school, Hyde Abbey, near Winchester. It is unknown whether Oliphant, like his younger brother Thomas, went to the nearby Winchester College. He was admitted to the bar in Edinburgh and then moved"
"for Covent Garden, ENO, the Vienna State Opera, the Kirov in Leningrad, La Scala, Milan, and opera houses in Berlin, Adelaide, Sydney, Cologne, Oslo, Amsterdam, Geneva and Lisbon. The best known of these have been Michael Tippett’s ""The Knot Garden"", directed by Peter Hall; ""The Bassarids"", directed by Hans Werner Henze; ""Peter Grimes"" and ""Wozzeck"", directed by Elijah Moshinsky; ""Lulu"", directed by Gotz Friedrich and Luciano Berio’s ""Outis"" and Wagner’s Ring Cycle, directed by Graham Vick. In 1978, he designed the Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ""Evita"" in partnership with Tazeena Firth, directed by Harold Prince. From 2014 until 2016,"
"was rebuilt. Mendelssohn's ""Wedding March"" from ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"" was played at the wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Victoria, The Princess Royal, to Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia in 1858, and it remains popular at marriage ceremonies. Mendelssohn's pupil Sterndale Bennett was a major force in British musical education until his death in 1875, and a great upholder of his master's traditions; he numbered among his pupils many of the next generation of English composers, including Sullivan, Hubert Parry and Francis Edward Bache. By the early twentieth century, many critics, including Bernard Shaw, began to condemn Mendelssohn's music"
"the work in 1968 conducted by Colin Davis with the Ritual Dances choreographed by Gillian Lynne and in 1970, where the production formed the basis of the first commercial recording. Tippett extracted the ""Four Ritual Dances"" from the opera as a separate concert work. The story of ""The Midsummer Marriage"" was consciously modeled after Mozart's ""The Magic Flute"". Both trace the path to marriage of one ""royal"" and one ""common"" couple: Jenifer and Mark correspond to Pamina and Tamino, the earthy Jack and Bella to Papageno and Papagena. King Fisher stands in for the Queen of the Night, the Ancients"
"He was an admired teacher at the Royal Academy of Music. He also championed contemporary composers, many of whom wrote works for him: examples include Thea Musgrave's ""Colloquy"" (1960), Gordon Crosse's Violin Concerto No. 2, Alexander Goehr's Violin Concerto (1961–62) and Hugh Wood's Violin Concerto. Benjamin Britten also composed for Parikian a cadenza to Mozart's Adagio for Violin and Orchestra K261 in 1951, and was assisted by Parikian when revising the solo part of his own violin concerto, originally composed in 1938-39. In 1957, he married the musician turned antiquarian bookseller Diana Carbutt, who was divorced from the conductor Neville"
"Frederick Dalberg Frederick Dalberg (7 January 1907 – 9 May 1988) was an English born South African opera bass. He was born Frederick Dalrymple on 7 January 1907 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. He joined the company of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London in 1951. There he created roles in two Benjamin Britten operas, John Claggart in ""Billy Budd"" (1951), and Sir Walter Raleigh in ""Gloriana"" (1953). He was in the debut cast of William Walton's ""Troilus and Cressida"" in 1954. Dalberg was in the premiere cast of Michael Tippett's opera ""The Midsummer Marriage"" in 1955. He died in South"