Music - AS Level - Tippett - Concerto for Double String Orchestra

Tippett- Concero for Double String Orchestra: movement 1

BACKGROUND

• Characteristic work of Tippett's early period
• It's origins reflect his social concerns
• First performed by the South London Orchestra (who provided performance oppertunities for unemployed musicians)
• First performed in 1940 at Morley College, Lambeth where Tippett was musical director.
• Reflects Tippett's interest's in English madrigals and neoclassicism

Rhythm and Metre

• Notated in 8/8 with occasionally changes to 6/8 and 4/8
• Use of quavers as the basic unit permits additive rhythms
• Syncopation is frequent, with rhythmic patterns extending over the barline
• Only at bar 95 is the music settled to a 'regular' crotchet pulse
• Where Tippett uses rhythmic augementation ie. the motif opening with crotchets in violin 1, orchestra 1 is doubled in length at bar 99 (cellos, orchestra 1) and doubled again at bar 103 (viola and cellos of orchestra 2, where the initial pitch pulse ress takes up a whole bar

Melody

• Opening motif characterised by repeated step movement before broadening out by leaps of 4ths and 3rds
• Melody extended by sequence (bar 8)
• Melody here is also inverted in lower parts
• Transition material marked by a more songlike approach, with longer note lengths and appearance of trills
• Prominent broken-chord motif in bass at bar 112

Harmony

• Non functional
• Harmonic progressions are difficult to discern for the most part because of the thin contrapuntal textures
• Counterpoint leads to dissonant collisions
• Phrygian cadence bars 20-21
• Common chord progression at bars 39-40
• Ambigious progression from bar 119 with augmented/whole tone structures heard in passing
• Final modal cadence of G to A, tonic preceded by flattened seventh

Tonality

• On A
• Non funcional with modal elements; aeolian, lydian
• Bars 1-4 of melody use the pentatonic scale
• Various tonal shifts

Structure

• Sonata form

Resources/Texture

• Frequent use of two-part counterpoint
• Occasional homophony and monophony as well as antiphony
• lyrical sections make use of broken chords
• No unconventional playing techniques, however, 'sul tasto' (bow over fringerboard at bar 107