Editing Michael Tippett (section)

===Compositional process===
Tippett described himself as the receiver of inspiration rather than its originator, the creative spark coming from a particular personal experience, which might take one of many forms but was most often associated with listening to music.<ref>Schuttenhelm (1913), pp. 108–109</ref> The process of composing was lengthy and laborious, the actual writing down of the music being preceded by several stages of gestation; as Tippett put it, "the concepts come first, and then a lot of work and imaginative processes until eventually, when you're ready, ''finally'' ready, you look for the actual notes".<ref>Tippett, quoted in Schuttenhelm (2013), p. 113</ref> He elaborated: "I compose by first developing an overall sense of the length of the work, then of how it will divide itself into sections or movements, then of the kind of texture or instruments or voices that will be performing it. I prefer not to consider the actual notes of the composition until this process ... has gone as far as possible".<ref>Tippett (1981), p. 348</ref> Sometimes the time required to see a project through from conception to completion was very long—seven years, Tippett said, in the case of the Third Symphony.<ref>Schuttenhelm (2013), p. 113</ref> In the earlier, contemplative stages he might be simultaneously engaged on other works, but once these stages were complete he would dedicate himself entirely to the completion of the work in hand.<ref>Schuttenhelm 2014, p. 14</ref>

Tippett preferred to compose in full score; once the writing began, progress was often not fluent, as evidenced by Tippett's first pencil draft manuscripts, which show multiple rubbings-out and reworkings. In this, the musicologist Thomas Schuttenhelm says, his methods resembled those of Beethoven, with the difference that "whereas Beethoven's struggle is considered a virtue of his work, and almost universally admired, Tippett's was the source and subject of a debate about his competency as a composer".<ref>Schuttenhelm (2014), pp. 15–16</ref>