Michael Tippett (1905-1998)

Michael Tippett was one of the greatest British composers of the 20th century and lived at Parkside House, High Street, Corsham, Wiltshire for ten years from 1960. During his time at Corsham, Tippett lived with his partner, artist Karl Hawker (1921-1984).

They first met in 1941 when Karl was 20 and Tippett was 27. Karl later married, had two daughters but after 13 years was divorced. He and Tippett met again in 1957 and then lived together until 1974. It was a volatile and tempestuous relationship, but with moments of tenderness too. Karl was to be the most important of all Tippett’s lovers. During their time together, Karl’s daughters Sarah and Susan stayed during the school holidays. They totally accepted the situation and got on well with Tippett. Sally Groves, later Tippett’s music publisher, first visited the house in Corsham when she was 17 and remembers it was “full of people doing interesting things behind the sofa and all over the place”.

In 1970 Tippett and Karl moved to Nockett’s Hill Farm, Derry Hill, Calne, Wiltshire. By then the relationship was breaking down. Karl was jealous of Tippett’s musical success which he felt stifled his own creativity and which led to depression.

By the late 1960s Tippett had begun a secret affair with Meirion (“Bill”) Bowen (b.1940), a homosexual music writer 35 years his junior. They had met in 1963 and Bowen was Tippett’s personal manager from 1974 until Tippett’s death. Karl eventually found out about the affair and he and Tippett split up in 1974. Ten years later Karl committed suicide with an overdose of pills. His daughter, Susan rang Tippett to break the news. He said he would call her back but never did and did not attend the funeral.

Tippett had been born into a progressive liberal family who moved to Suffolk soon after his birth. His education was at boarding schools, first at a preparatory school in Swanage, then at 13 he won a scholarship to Fettes College, a boys boarding school near Edinburgh where he was subjected to sadistic bullying and sexual abuse. Aged 15 he had an affair with another boy and his parents moved him to another school in Lincolnshire.

Tippett attended the Royal College of Music 1923-28, where he fell in love with a fellow music student. Tippett also had an unrequited love for attractive, heterosexual musician and composer Herbert Sumsion (1899-1995) who subsequently became organist of Gloucester Cathedral for nearly 50 years. In the 1930s Tippett had an intense affair with Wilfred Franks (1908-2003), an artist, sculptor, designer, dancer and actor. Tippett later said “Meeting with Wilf was the deepest, most shattering experience of falling in love”.

In the 1930s Tippett had an intense but platonic relationship with Francesca Allinson, a writer, music editor and musician who had previously had a lesbian relationship with stage director and theatre owner Judith Worgan. In 1986 Tippett described the relationship as “tender and serene”. It was “fiercely intimate” though not sexual, but he did consider marriage. Francesca said “Loving Michael was always adulterous as he always put his music first”. She was prone to depression and committed suicide in 1945 by jumping off a bridge into the River Stour, Suffolk. Her last letter to Tippett read “Keep a little place warm for me in your heart”. The shadow of Francesca’s death hung over Tippett for the rest of his life and he composed The Heart’s Assurance in her memory in 1951.

One of Tippett’s most well-known works is A Child of Our Time, a secular oratorio first performed in 1944 inspired by the events that led to Kristallnacht, the violent pogrom against Germany’s Jewish population. Several of Tippett’s operas have homosexual themes: King Priam (1962) includes the homoerotic attachment between Achilles and Patroculus; The Knot Garden” (1970) features a gay interracial couple. Tippett’s cantata “Crown of the Year” was created for the centenary of Badminton School, Bristol, and premiered there in July 1958. In May 1964 Bristol Sinfonia Orchestra debuted in the Colston Hall (now the Bristol Beacon) and Tippett was in the audience in a programme which included his Little Music for String Orchestra.

Tippett was knighted in 1966. He revived the Bath International Music Festival in 1969 and became the festival’s artistic director for five seasons. In the 1990s the Michael Tippett Centre concert venue was opened at the Newton Park campus of Bath Spa University.

Tippett’s failing eyesight prompted a move to London in 1996. He died in January 1998 aged 93.

Jonathan Rowe 2023

Michael Tippett: The Biography – Oliver Soden (2019)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tippett