Tippett Four Symphony Composer Technical Analysis And Research

Tippett, contemporary composer in Britain, has totally composed four symphonies in his whole life, which are all his excellent and representative works and also important large-scale works in the 20th century.This dissertation analyses his four symphonies, from angle of view of form, pitch, rhythm, time signature, mode, tonality, harmony, polyphone to orchestration. Tippett's composing technology and style expresses have either conservative inclination, or innovation that's not paid attention to the public.This dissertation used both the contemporary music analytical methods and traditional ways to analyze the symphonies according to the type of music, for instance: Post-Shenkerian Graphic Analysis technique; Analysis technique of Pan-tonality and Potential tonality and tonal music analysis technique, and summarized the inside technical law and stylistic feature with their characteristic, representative aspects.On the form of Tippett symphonies, the first two symphonies have contained classical four-movement form, the third symphony enclosed four-movement form into two sections and the fourth symphony is a design of symphonic poem with single movement, but implied the structure of classical four-movement. The interior structure of each movement in the four works has shown many unique points.The relations of horizontal pitches in the symphonies have non-chromatic style and use multi-mode compound scale. Tippett always break the regularity of well-balanced rhythm and circulating presses in time signature in various ways.In the harmonic practice, the symphonies have either inherited classical-functional system, or innovated ones. Such as complicated chord structure and progressive method of non- functional harmony have changed traditional harmonic meaning and value. The technology of the axis-sonority and the harmonic field makes strong modern style in harmony.In the aspect of polyphone structure, there exist the characters of contemporary composition, such as, polyphone of bitonality and polytonality, polyrhythm, poly-meter polyphone, poly-styles, group polyphone, etc. The usage of modes possesses the features of various mode types, multi-modality, compound scales, the vertical juxtaposition of bi-modality. The tonality of the four symphonies shows the feature of tonal relativism, bi-tonality, multi-tonality and pan-tonality, etc.Taking'sketch style'as the core on orchestrating, but the symphonies involve'skills of colored drawing'and'pointilism'. The use of'magical sonority', the profound sounding of percussive instruments and the usage of wind machine embody Tippett's pursuit to the timbres. The first two symphonies show the style of Post-romanticism and Neoclassicism. The third symphony has the style character of Neo-romanticism and Post-expressionism. The fourth symphony displays Neo-realism style inclination.Tippett inherited traditional quintessence and has developed the reasonable technology and style steadily.