Composer Michael Tippett’s music went out of fashion after he died in 1998. But “the fact is that, at his best, Tippett is a highly individual composer and a hugely important figure in 20th-century British music. His interest in the culture of other countries and his endless fascination with literature and the workings of the mind helped to keep him looking some 15 years younger than his true age. Rather than compare him to Britten, we should celebrate the fact that the two composers had such utterly contrasting minds.”