Fascinating documentary on the life of Sir Michael Tippett who died 25 years ago aged 93. Excellent cast of interviewees including archive material from Sir Colin Davis. Tippett was a complex character with a rather messy private life and bizarre ad-hoc arrangements with his personal affairs. He also flirted with both Communism and Trotskyism, and came eventually to settle on pacifism during the war (which earned him a prison sentence in 1943 for refusing to do war duties). His music, although apparently fiendishly difficult to play, is often very beautiful and moving. The programme featured the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Bearsden Choir, and included lots of musical references including long extracts from "A Child of Our Time" (from 1941) with it's wonderful use of Negro spirituals (the use and origin well explained by a now somewhat elderly David Owen Norris). The piece was conceived after Kristallnacht – the 1938 Nazi-led pogrom against German Jews – and speaks of refugees and persecution. Some of the loveliest interviews were with Tippett's two former housekeepers, who brilliantly put his decline and death down to "not having marmalade when he moved to London". That might well have been at least partially right. I saw Tippett at Symphony Hall when he appeared on stage with Simon Rattle after a CBSO performance of his Oratorio; must have been about 1991 just after the Hall opened.

Directed by John Bridcut. Executive Producers Jan Younghusband and Mark Bell. Crux Productions for BBC Television. First broadcast 8 June 2023.