The British have always been taken with the work of homegrown composer Michael Tippett, although he is hardly a household name elsewhere in the world. This is exactly as it should be, says Norman Lebrecht, and the coming celebration of his centenary will be little more than a tip of the cap to mediocrity. Tippett was, in fact, “an inglorious exemplar of English amateurism… Set beside any of his contemporaries, radical or conservative, British, American or European, Tippett fails the driving test of coherence.”