A Child of Our Time

Individual lives tell the stories for this programme. Jamaican-born British composer Eleanor Alberga is inspired by the memory of a dear friend, a “tower of strength”, with music that brings a character to life. Meanwhile, Vaughan Williams tells the tale of a vagabond on his travels who demands “give to me the life I love”. Tippett’s oratorio relates the tragedy of an individual’s desperate act, and over 80 years after its premiere, still resonates with its themes of oppression and disenfranchisement. His use of African-American spirituals to evoke, as he put it, those “cast out from the centre of our society onto the fringes” is as pertinent now as it was then.