talks to John Warrack
"Tippett has a Quaker mind with Catholic music". (T. S. Eliot)
"I'm interested in programmes such as 'Top of the Pops' to see the sophistication that has gone into it" (Sir Michael Tippett)

Tippett, who has just completed his third opera "Knot Garden", is one of the leading English composers and his own librettist.
He talks about his musical influences and deep interest in the "musical vernacular" and also his literary influences, notably Shakespeare and Eliot.
While he does not regard himself as a conventionally religious man, he feels his creative vitality comes from an extreme sense of an inner life. He has, too, a strong practical streak, which reveals itself in his enthusiasm for the Leicestershire Schools Orchestra which he regularly conducts, and a keen interest in all that is happening around him.
Tippett is about to start a third symphony in which he plans to re-explore the Blues, culminating in a set of improvisations which he calls "wild jazz".

22.55 The Dumb Waiter
Play by Harold Pinter
(Rowridge, Brighton)