Thomas Pitfield: His Friends & Contemporaries
rec. 2023, St. Paul’s Church, Heaton Moor, Stockport, UK
Divine Art DDX21246 [2 CDs: 112]
The blurb says that the album “pays homage to the multifaceted talent of Thomas Baron Pitfield (1903-1999). Pitfield was not just a composer; he embodied the essence of a Renaissance man, excelling in various fields including teaching, visual arts, poetry, writing, furniture making, and ornithology.” The influence on his musical colleagues was very important. Here is a wide selection of works by Pitfield and his peers, friends and students.
Pitfield dedicated the four-movement eighteen-minute Divertimento for oboe and string trio to Leon Goossens on his 70th birthday. He headed the score with a few poetic lines, beginning with “He pipes his pastoral way”. The words sum up the impression of this charming tribute. After a brief, airy Toccatina, the Pastorale presents a folksong-like melody. There follows a well-crafted, introspective Intermezzo, and a rondo with a chattering tune with several reflective byways. The work delights with the evocation of the North Country landscape.
John Joubert dedicated Remember: Scena for soprano, recorder and string quartet (one of his last compositions) to recorderist John Turner. The text comes from Christina Rossetti’s heart-breaking sonnet Remember, which explores themes of love, death and memory. The intense setting emphasizes the poet’s desire that the beloved remember her without sadness.
My highlight of the first disc is Ernest John Moeran’s Fantasy Quartet for oboe and string trio. The liner notes explain that Pitfield knew Moeran well. The Fantasy was devised for Leon Goossens, who premiered it on 8 December 1946. At that time, Moeran was struggling with alcoholism, and his marriage to cellist Peers Coetmore was in trouble. But none of that affects the progress of this mature, deeply felt piece. The reviewer of the premiere (The Times, 10 December 1946, p.6) summed it up saying that it was “almost inevitably pastoral in its general character” and “somehow conveyed the feeling of sunshine over rural England”.
Ernst Hermann Meyer’sNow, Voyager: Ode for voice and string quartet is a haunting exploration of Walt Whitman’s poem Now finalè to the shore. It encourages the reader to embark on new adventures: there is much still to discover and experience. The words can be seen as a metaphor for the transition between life and death.
The disc ends with Pitfield’s charming Three Nautical Sketches for recorder and string quartet, an arrangement by his onetime pupil, John McCabe, of the original work for recorder and piano. The first movement, Quodlibet, explores the sea shanties The Three Mariners and Donkey Riding. The slow movement is a moving reflection on Tom Bowling. The finale is a rumbustious take on The Keel Row. There also is a version for recorder and string orchestra (review). Any incarnation would make a great piece for the concert hall or recital room.
The second disc begins with Robin Walker’s Parrottry for recorder and string quartet. The title is a play on words: parrotry (servile imitation and repetition) and the surname of composer Ian Parrott (1916-2012). This commission celebrated his ninetieth birthday. The progress of the music does call for repetition but never servile. Walker asks: “How much repetition is too much? Literal repetition rapidly wears thin (vide Minimalism), but varied repetition is the essence of extended symphonic composition. The instruments play out a mixture of the two until – to avoid things getting out of hand, and the likely onset of parrotry – it is time, as it were, to place a cloth over the parrot’s cage.” It is fun. Ian Parrott must have appreciated it, with no imputation on his musical achievement!
The liner notes tell us that Jeremy Pike’s Spring for recorder and quartet celebrates John Turner’s eightieth birthday in 2023. Pike says: “the letters contained in John’s name are used to create a theme that reflects the various sounds of the season. The music alludes to the conflicting emotions stirred in the months of March and April.” The only musical note in JT’s name is E, but perhaps there was a scheme… This is altogether a dark offering, not an explosion of vernal fecundity.
The programme includes six songs for soprano solo and recorder. Pitfield’s friends wrote three. We get Nicolas Marshall’s lively Yeats setting To a Child Dancing in the Wind; Anthony Gilbert’s lugubrious realisation of his own text A breath for Life; and John Turner’s Spring to words by William Blake. Stuart Scott’s Three Blake Songs are Ah, Sunflower, The Lilly and Infant Joy. I feel that the tessitura of both soloists tends to be too piercing and overbearing in most of these songs.
Richard Pantcheff wrote Spring Suite for recorder and string quartet for John Turner. It is an attractive collection of baroque dances reimagined in a contemporary but approachable musical language. The five contrasting movements are a Bourrée, a Siciliano, an Air, a Minuet, and a Gigue.
Geoffrey Poole penned Seasons of Mist for recorder and string quintet during the Covid pandemic. It was designed to reflect “poets from Basho to Keats [who] have dwelt on the peculiar beauties of Autumn”. There are three contrasting movements. November Dawn is restrained and impressionistic. The Bonfire Night is a vibrant scherzo, complete with musical onomatopoeia of bursting rockets and Catherine wheel. The work concludes with a meditation on Autumn Leaves; it echoes the transience of life, rather than portraying a blustery day.
Two songs for soprano, recorder and harp follow. The Carol Lullaby, with Pitfield’s text and music, is gentle and sentimentally religious. Gordon Crosse wrote Lullaby (TBP his goodnight) – an astringent rather than soothing berceuse – for Thomas Baron Pitfield. According to the liner notes, the piece began life as part of the incidental music for Michael Elliott’s Manchester Royal Exchange production of Sophocles’ tragedy Philoctetes. It was revised as a contribution to Pitfield’s eightieth-birthday album published by Forsyth’s of Manchester.
Christopher Cotton composedOverture for St. Paul’s for recorder, oboe and string quartet for the launch of the Stockport Heatons concert series ‘Music on the Moor.’ The liner notes do not say that this is St Paul’s Church in Heaton Mersey, Stockport. This wistful little work seems timeless in its evocation of baroque mannerisms and more up-to-date echoes. It is perfectly scored, with the two wind instruments in equilibrium.
The discs offer magnificent performances, a splendid recording and an informative booklet. As all of Divine Art’s Pitfield releases thus far, the cover shows Pitfield’s remarkable and evocative watercolour Weaver Bridge at Church Minshull, Cheshire, from the garden of Weaver Cottage. This is a rewarding exploration of music by Thomas Pitfield and his circle.
John France
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Contents and performers
CD1
Thomas Pitfield (1903-1999)
Divertimento for oboe and string trio (1966/1967)
Richard Simpson (oboe), Benedict Holland (violin), Heather Wallington (viola), Jennifer
Langridge (cello)
John Joubert (1927-2019)
Remember: Scena for soprano, recorder and string quartet, op. 184 (2018)
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano), John Turner (recorder), Victoria String Quartet
E. J. Moeran (1894-1950)
Fantasy Quartet, for oboe and string trio (1946)
Richard Simpson (oboe), Benedict Holland (violin), Heather Wallington (viola), Jennifer
Langridge (cello)
Ernst Hermann Meyer (1905-1988)
Now, Voyager: Ode for voice and string quartet (1946)
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano), Victoria String Quartet
Thomas Pitfield, arr. John McCabe (1939-2015)
Three Nautical Sketches for recorder and string quartet (1982, arr. 2003)
John Turner (recorder), Victoria String Quartet
CD2
Robin Walker (b. 1953)
Parrottry for recorder and string quartet (2006)
John Turner (recorder), Victoria String Quartet
Jeremy Pike (b. 1955)
Spring for recorder, harp, and string quartet (2023)
John Turner (recorder), Lauren Scott (harp), Victoria String Quartet
Nicholas Marshall (b. 1942)
To a Child Dancing in the Wind (words by W. B. Yeats) (2023)
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano), John Turner (recorder)
Anthony Gilbert (1934-2023)
A Breath for Life (words by “Anthonymus 2023”) (2023)
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano), John Turner (recorder)
John Turner (b. 1943)
Spring (words by William Blake) (1968, rev. 2023)
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano), John Turner (recorder)
Richard Pantcheff (b. 1959)
Spring Suite for recorder and string quartet (2022)
John Turner (recorder), Victoria String Quartet
Stuart Scott (b. 1949)
Three Blake Songs (?)
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano), John Turner (recorder)
Geoffrey Poole (b. 1949)
Seasons of Mist, for recorder and string quintet (2021)
John Turner (recorder), Victoria String Quartet, Alex Jones (double bass)
Thomas Pitfield
Carol Lullaby for soprano, recorder, and harp (undated)
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano), John Turner (recorder), Lauren Scott (harp)
Gordon Crosse (1937-2021)
Lullaby (TBP his goodnight) for soprano, recorder, and violin (c.1982)
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano), John Turner (recorder), Benedict Holland (violin)
Christopher Cotton (b. 1947)
Overture for St. Paul’s for recorder, oboe, and string quartet (2018?)
John Turner (recorder), Richard Simpson (oboe), Victoria String Quartet
