Classical Music: The day the music died

Music on Radio 3

On Monday, BBC Radio 3 dedicated its entire evening to the memory of Sir Michael Tippett, who died last week. Anthony Payne celebrates the network's healing power.

Tippett dead? It is difficult to believe that that great light has been snuffed out. Life-enhancing and, at all times in his long life, affirmative composer that he was, he would not have had us be gloomy at his passing. But grieve we must, and Radio 3, in a massive change of schedule, mounted a whole evening of celebrations of his life and music on Monday night. No easy task this, given the multifarious activities that marked his life. Philosopher and unstoppable talker, guru (although he hated that idea), humanitarian and visionary, as well as composer pure and simple, Tippett provided food for thought throughout his ever-broadening, ever-developing career.

Presenters Anthony Burton and Michael Berkeley had their hands full, and yet, with the aid of a gallery of artists and thinkers of all kinds, they managed to create a convincing portrait of the man in all his many aspects. Of course, the things we knew and loved him and his music for were constantly being affirmed: his optimism (always hard-won during a time of doubt and instability), his refusal to belong to any school or trend (though he took keen note of what was going on around, in the world at large, and in music), his mischievous and child-like sense of humour.

Yet there were anecdotes that somehow took us even closer to the composer. Alexander Goehr spoke of Tippett supporting his desire to take up music against the wishes of his own father, the conductor Walter Goehr, who doubted his son's ability. "You do something because you want to, not because you're good at it," reproved Tippett. Steve Martland, one of many young composers to whom Tippett gave moral support, once asked him about his harmony. "But there isn't any," came the reply.

An interesting professional appraisal came from Paul Crossley, who spoke outstandingly of the paradox of Tippett's piano writing, often nightmarishly testing because of Tippett's total lack of a pianist's "finger memory", but at the same time avoiding all pianistic cliches, and hence fresh and original. Then there was Sir Peter Hall, who made out a passionate case for Tippett the librettist, cutting across received opinion by praising his psychological coherence, sense of dramatic space and rootedness in our time and its problems - splendid stuff.

Fascinating, too, to hear a repeat of Anthony Clare's interview with the composer for In the Psychiatrist's Chair. In his open-hearted - and no doubt egocentric - way, Tippett never denied the egocentricity of the creative artist; he managed the interview throughout, well, almost. Clare asked him unexpectedly what died when he went through one of his psychological crises. For a moment, Tippett stopped in his tracks, intrigued, but came back with: "What was born? That's the question."

And what of the music we heard throughout this five-hour Tippett-fest? This is a composer who wrote great works in all genres - chamber, orchestral and operatic - and we were given, quite simply, some of the finest music of our time: the Second Symphony in Sir Colin Davis and the LSO's matchless recording, a radiant excerpt from The Midsummer Marriage, the Lindsays in the Fifth String Quartet, the supreme Concerto for Double String Orchestra and much more.

But let the composer's long-time companion, Meirion (Bill) Bowen have the last word. When asked about Tippett's attitude to composing, he said: "He had to spread compassion and intimate that there is something better in the world than violence and commerce. Music has to be more than entertainment, it should heal."