Editing Michael Tippett (section)

===Childhood and schooling===
[[File:Stamford School - illuminated at night.jpg|thumb|left|Stamford School, which Tippett attended between 1920 and 1923]]
Shortly after Michael's birth, the family moved to [[Wetherden]] in Suffolk. Michael's education began in 1909 with a nursery governess and various private tutors who followed a curriculum that included piano lessons—his first formal contact with music.<ref>Kemp, pp. 6–8</ref> There was a piano in the house, on which he "took to improvising crazily ... which I called 'composing', though I had only the vaguest notion of what that meant".<ref>Tippett (1991), p. 5</ref> In September 1914 Michael became a boarder at Brookfield Preparatory School in [[Swanage]], Dorset. He spent four years there, at one point earning notoriety by writing an essay that challenged the existence of God.<ref>Tippett (1991) p. 7</ref><ref name=odnb>Lewis (2004)</ref> In 1918 he won a scholarship to [[Fettes College]], a boarding school in Edinburgh, where he studied the piano, sang in the choir, and began to learn to play the pipe organ. The school was not a happy place; sadistic bullying of the younger pupils was commonplace.<ref name= Bowen16>Bowen, p. 16</ref><ref name= K9>Kemp, pp. 9–10</ref> When Michael revealed to his parents in March 1920 that he had formed a homosexual relationship with another boy, they removed him to [[Stamford School]] in Lincolnshire, where a decade previously [[Malcolm Sargent]] had been a pupil.<ref name= Tippett8>Tippett (1991), pp. 8–9</ref><ref name= odnb2>{{cite ODNB|last= Armstrong|first= Thomas|title= Sargent, Sir (Harold) Malcolm Watts|url= http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35949?docPos=1|date=6 January 2011|doi= 10.1093/ref:odnb/35949|display-authors=etal}} {{subscription}}</ref>

Around this time Henry Tippett decided to live in France, and the house in Wetherden was sold. The 15-year-old Michael and his brother Peter remained at school in England, travelling to France for their holidays.<ref>Kemp, pp. 6–7</ref> Michael found Stamford much more congenial than Fettes, and developed both academically and musically. He found an inspiring piano teacher in Frances Tinkler, who introduced him to the music of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin.<ref name= K9/> Sargent had maintained his connection with the school, and was present when Tippett and another boy played Bach's ''C minor Concerto for Two Harpsichords'' on pianos with a local string orchestra. Tippett sang in the chorus when Sargent directed a local performance of [[Robert Planquette]]'s operetta {{Lang|fr|[[Les Cloches de Corneville]]}}.<ref>Kemp, p. 11</ref> Despite his parents' wish that he follow an orthodox path by proceeding to [[Cambridge University]], Tippett had firmly decided on a career as a composer, a prospect that alarmed them and was discouraged by his headmaster and by Sargent.<ref name= Kemp12>Kemp, p. 12</ref>

By mid-1922 Tippett had developed a rebellious streak. His overt atheism particularly troubled the school, and he was required to leave. He remained in Stamford in private lodgings, while continuing lessons with Tinkler and with the organist of [[St Mary's Church, Stamford|St Mary's Church]].<ref name= Kemp12/> He also began studying [[Charles Villiers Stanford]]'s book ''Musical Composition'', which, he later wrote, "became the basis of all my compositional efforts for decades to come".<ref>Tippett (1991), p. 11</ref> In 1923 Henry Tippett was persuaded that some form of musical career, perhaps as a concert pianist, was possible, and agreed to support his son in a course of study at the [[Royal College of Music]] (RCM). After an interview with the college principal, [[Hugh Allen (conductor)|Sir Hugh Allen]], Tippett was accepted despite his lack of formal entry qualifications.<ref name= odnb/><ref name= Kemp12/><ref>Bowen, p. 17</ref>