Difficult Listening Hour

Hello and welcome to another Difficult Listening Hour, where we play none of the hits and your Spotify listening history is wrecked forever.

This week we are tucking in the earbuds for Michael Tippett’s A Child Of Our Time.

Tippett was a left wing poster child: artist, conscientious objector, and queer. He wrote this oratorio partially as a response to Kristallnacht. Here is an English composer using African-American spirituals in the form of Handel’s Messiah to promote a message of pacifism and reconciliation. Good stuff!

Check it out.

Used without permission from Universal Music Group. Neener-neener!