A Child of Our Time

Description

A Child of Our Time is a secular oratorio by the British composer Michael Tippett, who also wrote the libretto. Composed between 1939 and 1941, it was first performed at the Adelphi Theatre, London, on 19 March 1944. The work was inspired by events that profoundly affected Tippett: the assassination of a German diplomat by a young Jewish refugee in 1938, and the Nazi government's reaction to the assassination which was in the form of a violent pogrom against Germany's Jewish population: Kristallnacht. Tippett's oratorio deals with these incidents in the context of the experiences of all oppressed people, and it carries a strongly pacifistic message of ultimate understanding and reconciliation. The text's recurrent themes of shadow and light reflect the Jungian psychoanalysis which Tippett underwent in the years immediately before he wrote the work.

The oratorio uses a traditional three-part format based on that of Handel's Messiah, and is structured in the manner of Bach's Passions. The work's most original feature is Tippett's use of African-American spirituals, which carry out the role allocated by Bach to chorales. Tippett justified this innovation on the grounds that these songs of oppression possess a universality absent from traditional hymns. A Child of Our Time was well received on its first performance, and has since been performed all over the world in many languages.

Part I

1. Chorus
2. The Argument. Alto solo

3. Scena: Chorus and Alto Solo

4. The Narrator. Bass Solo
5. Chorus of the Oppressed
6. Tenor Solo
7. Soprano Solo
8. A Spiritual: Chorus and Soli

Part II

9. Chorus

10. The Narrator. Bass Solo

11. Double Chorus of Persecutors and Persecuted

12. The Narrator. Bass Solo
13. Chorus of the Self-righteous

14. The Narrator. Bass Solo
15. Scena: The Mother, the Uncle and Aunt, and the Boy. Solo Quartet

16. A Spiritual. Chorus and Soli
17. Scena: Duet, Bass and Alto
18. The Narrator. Bass Solo
19. The Terror. Chorus
20. The Narrator. Bass Solo

21. A Spiritual of Anger. Chorus and Bass Solo

22. The boy sings in his Prison. Tenor Solo
23. The Mother. Soprano Solo
24. Alto Solo
25. A Spiritual. Chorus and Soprano Solo

Part III:

26. Chorus
27. Alto Solo
28. Scena: Bass Solo and Chorus

29. General Ensemble. Chorus and Soli

30. A Spiritual. Chorus and Soli