To honour the centenary of the birth of Sir Michael Tippett, our choir is performing his fantastic work *A Child of Our Time * tonight and tomorrow afternoon. We’ve had a couple of months’ rehearsals on what is a very challenging work so now we’re looking forward to a great performance in front of (I hope) a large audience.
Good luck - a monster of a piece! I have to admit, though, that Tippett has always left me cold. (We’re playing Britten tonight, which I much prefer 
)
We’ve just completed the Sunday afternoon performance. Last night’s was very good but today’s was even better. There was so much emotion from the choir and the soloists. Not large crowds, unfortunately, but quite a lot of them were in tears by the end this afternoon, so we obviously moved them.
I hope we get a good review.
And here’s the review from this morning’s (Monday’s) Sydney Morning Herald:
A Child of Our Time
Reviewed by Harriet Cunningham
30 May 2005
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Sydney Opera House, Concert Hall, May 28
With a harrowing lament still ringing in the air, the opening lines of the Negro spiritual *Steal Away to Jesus * creep in like a nurse at the bedside of the dying with a comforting authority in the face of despair.
The power of the vernacular against the elusive graspings of composer Michael Tippett’s own highly crafted music are juxtaposed to magical effect.
English composer Michael Tippett started his oratorio *A Child of Our Time * on the eve of World War II, with the horror of the Jewish pogrom known as Kristallnacht reverberating through Europe.
It’s an impossibly difficult subject, and work born of a specific moment, but in it Tippett has created in his individual way a work which reaches out beyond war-mired Europe with a clarity that still hits home.
It must have been a hard sell for the Sydney Philharmonia. Those in the audience were not quite outnumbered by the massed choir and orchestra, but they rattled in the cavernous Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. Yet those who braved the cold were rewarded by a performance handsomely crafted, beautifully prepared and brilliantly performed.
The cornerstone of the performance was artistic director Brett Weymark. With his rock-solid energy centre-stage the symphonic choir powered through the most challenging of fugues and scary antiphonal entries. “The Terror” came through with all the clipped venom of “He trusted in God” in Handel’s Messiah, and the conclusion, “I would know my shadow and my light”, was handled by the large choir with a rare delicacy. The orchestra was equally impressive under Weymark’s leadership, with bloody brass fanfares ripping through the hall and demanding solos from the woodwind.
And what of the spirituals? They could have been a glaring anachronism in a work inspired by European sense and insensibility. But Tippett’s gamble paid off, and the Sydney Philharmonia Massed Choir, expertly drilled by David Russell, sung out true and clear, tapping into the resonance of humanity.