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.