Beethoven suppressed everything, his personal life disappeared until he was locked inside. That is a figure quite extreme.
Michael Tippett

Characters are an extreme form in Shakespeare's theater.
Michael Tippett

Conductors don't suffer, they are part of the performance.
Michael Tippett

I am quite certain in my heart of hearts that modern music and modern art is not a conspiracy, but is a form of truth and integrity for those who practise it honestly, decently and with all their being.
Michael Tippett

I remain a humanist. We are a very curious race.
Michael Tippett

I think we're all pretty odd.
Michael Tippett

I'm outside the music I've made. I have no interest in it.
Michael Tippett

I've seldom become nostalgic or settled.
Michael Tippett

Music is a performance and needs the audience.
Michael Tippett

Music is a performing art, as any Native American will tell you. It isn't there in the score.
Michael Tippett


Music remains the most strange of the materials because we don't understand what happens when music moves you.
Michael Tippett

My true function within a society which embraces all of us is to continue an age-old tradition. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form, whether visual, intellectual or musical.
Michael Tippett

Nature has different times.
Michael Tippett

Poetry is fascinating. As soon as it begins the poetry has changed the thing into something extra, and somehow prose can go over into poetry.
Michael Tippett

Public notice does not necessarily accord with internal fulfilment.
Michael Tippett

Shakespeare fascinated me. He hardly ever left the country. His imagination was worldwide though reading.
Michael Tippett

Shiva danced the world into existence... that's a very nice thought.
Michael Tippett

The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It's probably the music that belongs most to our time.
Michael Tippett

The Greek sculptor - I don't think he was very different from any of us.
Michael Tippett

The nearest figure to myself would be Shakespeare.
Michael Tippett