English composer acknowledged as a master of his art

Generally regarded as one of the 20th century's foremost composers, Michael Tippett was at one time considered difficult to listen to. Later life, however, saw him become a revered music icon and, with his death on 8 January 1998 at the age of 93, an era passed away.

The self-confessed pacifist won plaudits for his five operas and, in particular, respect for the wartime oratorio, 'A Child of Our Time'.

Amazingly, he was still composing at the age of 90.

"It has such an extraordinary power and it wraps you around," he once said of the effect music had upon him. "If I hear it in my head or coming from the television, anywhere, its effect is quite immediate."

Michael Kemp Tippett was born on 2 January, 1905, in London. The son of a prominent suffragette, he spent much of his early years travelling with his parents before returning to England to attend Stamford School, Lincolnshire.

It was there at Stamford that he began taking piano lessons and, crucially, saw the revered British composer Malcolm Sargent conducting.

Inspired, he plunged himself into musical life, registering as a student at the Royal College of Music where he studied composition with Irish composer Charles Wood and conducting with Adrian Boult.

Mr Tippett was a late developer as a composer, however, and spent much of the 1920s conducting amateur choirs and local operas, as well a brief spell teaching at the nearby Morley College.

A committed pacifist, his staunch beliefs led to a two-month jail sentence during World War Two, but he nevertheless continued to compose and, by the age of 40, had finally found a growing audience for his work.

The operas 'The Midsummer Marriage', 'King Priam' and 'The Knot Garden' cemented his success, whilst noted poet T. S. Elliot convinced him to write the oratorio 'A Child of Our Time' as a response to the rise of fascism during the 1930s.

The 1960s and 70s, however, saw his much of his work become outmoded and, as the pieces became more complex and less accessible, were rarely performed.

His 90th birthday sparked something of a revival in the some of the world's most prestigious concert halls but, on 8 January 1998, he died of pneumonia at the age of 93.

Although having always been a left-winger, Mr Tippett reportedly became more radical after seeing the miserable conditions of a small mining village in the north of England during the early 1930s.

The oratorio 'A Child of Our Time', first performed in 1944, was later described by the US magazine 'Newsweek' as "something Handel might have written had he lived in the age of Auschwitz."

Mr Tippet's autobiography, 'Those Twentieth Century Blues', was published in 1995.

President of the Society of Recorder Players, he was awarded the CBE in 1959 and the Order of Merit in 1983 for his services to music.