Thomas Pitfield
Thomas Baron Pitfield was a British polymath, primarily remembered as a composer, but also a poet, artist, engraver, calligrapher, master craftsman, furniture builder and teacher.
Life
He was born at 57 New Road Bolton to elderly parents whose strict Victorian values and lack of support for his creative interests led to his being withdrawn from school at 14 for a seven-year engineering apprenticeship with Hick, Hargreaves & Co. Ltd. His designs for transmission machinery for the cotton industry survive as do his ink and watercolour paintings of railway engines.Although he was essentially self-taught as a composer, he did study piano, cello and harmony at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where his teachers were Thomas Keighley, Kathleen Moorhouse, Frank Merrick and Carl Fuchs. He also received early advice on composition from Eric Fogg. In 1930 he won a scholarship to study art and cabinet-making at the Bolton School of Art.
After training as a teacher, he became art master at Tettenhall College, Wolverhampton. Whilst there, as a pacifist, he joined the Peace Pledge Union. In the Second World War he registered as a conscientious objector, with a condition that he continue teaching. He taught composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music from 1947 to 1973, where his pupils included David Ellis, Robin Field, John Golland, John McCabe, John Ogdon, Philip Spratley and Ronald Stevenson.
Pitfield was a lifelong vegetarian. Between 1986 and 1993 he wrote a three volume autobiography, and also wrote more than 260 poems. His collection The Poetry of Trees combines poetry and illustration. In 1957 he designed his house, ‘Lesser Thorns’, in Bowdon near Manchester, and made its furnishings. He continued to create art and music until his nineties.
Pitfield married his wife Alice Astbury, a pianist, on 26 December 1934. He died in Bowdon in November 1999, aged 96. Alice Pitfield died on 11 October 2000. Their house was sold and has since been demolished.
His autobiographical writings - including a fourth volume, Incidents from a Sixty Year Holiday Diary - as well as worklists and appreciations were published in 2024.
Composition
As a composer Pitfield was influenced by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Percy Grainger and Frederick Delius. He was prolific, and his compositions are typically "light-hearted and small scale", referencing folk music and often including irregular rhythms. However there are also large scale works, including concertos for piano, violin, recorder and percussion as well as a five-movement Sinfonietta, and over a dozen stage works with music, such as The Devil in White and Adam and the Creatures, both described as morality plays. His Piano Concerto No. 1 was performed several times at the Festival of Britain in 1951. The paired choral cantatas A Sketchbook of Men and A Sketchbook of Women, achieved some popularity.Substantial chamber works include the Cello Sonata in D minor, two Piano Trios, a Trio for flute, oboe and piano, an Oboe Sonata and a Xylophone Sonata. There are also collections of miniatures for students and amateurs and solo works for accordion, clarsach, and harmonica. He also invented an instrument called “patterphone” to produce rain-like sounds.
He wrote for many notable artists, such as Léon Goossens, Evelyn Rothwell, Archie Camden, Carl Dolmetsch and Osian Ellis. His 1959 solo piano piece Diversions on a Russian Air, was dedicated to John Ogden.
His music was published by more than 50 publishers. Hubert J. Foss of the Oxford University Press published many of his compositions, illustrations, frontispieces and cover-designs, which he made for various publications, including the one for Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony. John Turner has published The Music of Thomas Pitfield: A Working Catalogue.
Selected works
Orchestral- Sinfonietta
- Piano Concerto No. 1 in E major
- Concert Overture Fantasia on an Old Staffordshire Tune Theme and Variations for string orchestra Fantasia for violin and orchestra Overture on North-Country Tunes Concerto Lirico for violin and orchestra
- Piano Concerto No. 2, The Student
- Concertino for percussion and orchestra
- Divertimento for oboe and string trio Epitaph for string orchestra
- Recorder Concerto, with string orchestra and percussion Lyric Waltz for string orchestra Bucolics: Folk Song Studies
- Piano Trio No 1 in C major Prelude, Minuet and Reel for piano
- Violin Sonata No. 1 in A
- Cello Sonata in D minor The Circle Suite for piano
- Sonatina for cello and piano
- Sonatina for viola and piano
- Oboe Sonata in A Minor
- Piano Trio No 2 in F minor, Lyric)
- Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano Novelette in F for piano
- Toccata for piano
- Trio for flute, oboe and piano Diversions on a Russian Air for piano Conversation Piece for clarinet and piano
- Sonata for Accordion
- Sonatina for clarinet and piano
- Studies on an English Dance Tune for piano
- Sonatina for percussion
- Three Nautical Sketches for recorder and piano
- Sonata for timpani
- Xylophone Sonata Epigraph for violin, cello and piano
- Sonatinas for piano, Nos. 1, 2 and 3
DramaticThe Elm-Spirit, ballet The Rejected Pieman, ballet Maid of Hearts, ballet The Devil in White, morality play with music The Hallowed Manger, nativity play The Barnyard Singers, children’s opera Tansy, children's opera Adam and the Creatures, morality play with music Coney Warren, children's comic opera St Columba in Iona, morality play with music
WritingsMusicianship for Guitarists Musicianly Scale Practice The Poetry of Trees No Song, No Supper: an Autobiography Song after Supper, autobiography, part two A Cotton Town Boyhood, autobiography, part three Sixty Year Holiday Diary, autobiography, part four
Recordings
Concerto Lirico for violin and orchestra,- Divertimento, Three Nautical Sketches, on Pitfield: His Friends & Contemporaries,
- Oboe Sonata, Violin Sonata No 1, Eight Songs, on Thomas Pitfield: Chamber Music,
- Orchestral Music. Sinfonietta, Fantasia on an Old Staffordshire Tune, Lyric Waltz, Bucolics, Folk Song Studies, Concerto Lirico, Epitath.
- Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2, Xylophone Sonata,
- Piano Music. Diversions on a Russian Air, Three Bagatelles, Sonatina No.2, Prelude, Minuet and Reel etc.
- Piano Trios Nos. 1 and 2, Cello Sonata, Sonatina, on Pitfield: String Chamber Music,
- Recorder Concerto, on English Recorder Music,
- Songs, The Songs of Thomas Pitfield, Theme and Variations for strings, on
- Violin Sonata No 1 in A,