Michael Tippett is one of the major figures of British music in this century. This volume of essays provides the first substantial writing on the composer for over a decade and includes the work of established scholars as well as several new voices. Across essays that encompass a range of genres and style periods, a number of recurring themes can be detected. Broadly speaking, the book moves from technical discussion focused on individual works to wider questions of context--the "external" factors that have shaped the composer's musical production, such as his relationship to the past, his fascination with ancient Greece and his pursuit of the transcendent.