Michael Tippett wrote his oratorio A Child of our Time as Europe was on the brink of war. The act that prompted the first impulse to compose was the pogrom that the Nazis unleashed on the Jews on Kristallnacht (November 10, 1938) in retribution for the murder of a German diplomat in Paris by a young Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, driven to desperation by the persecution of his people. Tippett's genius in the work is to fuse the personal and intimate with the general and universal. Just as Bach used Lutheran chorales to punctuate his Passion settings, Tippett uses spirituals — to wonderful and moving effect. He was fierce believer in justice for mankind, and manages superbly to tell one man's story in a way that engages with a more universal goal. His writing for the soloists is beautifully sensitive: "I have no money for my bread," sung by the tenor in Part 1, never fails to tug at the heart strings.