What is Michael Tippett?
{{One source|date=November 2024}} [[Knight Bachelor|Sir]] '''Michael Kemp Tippett''' [[Order of Merit|OM]] [[Order of the Companions of Honour|CH]] [[Order of the British Empire|CBE]] (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an [[English people|English]] [[composer]].<ref name=schott>{{cite web|url=http://www.schott-music.com/shop/persons/featured/19099/|title=Schott Music - Sir Michael Tippett - Profile|publisher=|accessdate=19 July 2015|archive-date=6 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906040222/http://www.schott-music.com/shop/persons/featured/19099/|url-status=dead}}</ref> He is one of the greatest and most original composers of the [[20th century]]. His work was published for the first time when he was 30 years old, and only become famous when he was about 40. The [[rhythm]]s in his music and the [[tonality]] are very original. He is remembered for many kinds of music: [[opera]], [[oratorio]], [[orchestral]] music, [[chamber music]] and [[piano]] music. His [[oratorio]] ''A Child of our Time'' is especially well-known and often performed by [[choir]]s. == His life == Tippett was born in [[Eastcote]], [[Middlesex]] and spent his childhood in a small [[village]] in [[Suffolk]]. His father had [[retirement|retired]] and had bought a [[hotel]] in [[Cannes]], [[France]]. Michael and his brother learned to speak [[French language|French]] when they were very young. He was sent to school in [[Edinburgh]] when he was 13 but did not like it there so he went to the local [[Stamford, Lincolnshire|Stamford]] Grammar School in [[Lincolnshire]]. The only musical training he had as a child were his piano lessons. When he had finished his school years he decided he wanted to be a composer, but neither he nor his parents knew the best way to become a composer. He started having more piano lessons. Then someone said he should go to the [[Royal College of Music]]. He went there at the beginning of the summer term, 1923 and spent five years there studying music. He then moved to Oxted in [[Surrey]] and f