Endless Fascination: The Life and Work of Thomas Pitfield, Composer, Artist, Craftsman, Poet

Endless Fascination is a celebration of the life and labour of composer, artist, craftsman and poet, Thomas Pitfield. It is a sumptuous volume that goes well beyond mere biography and analysis. It is not a book to through read, although that is possible, but one to dip into, absorb slowly and learn. A cast of dozens contribute to this extensive and unique study of an overlooked British Composer. The book is conceived in five “Parts”: ‘Thomas Pitfield’s Autobiographical Writings,’ his ‘Work,’ ‘Recollections, Appreciations,’ ‘Worklists,’ and finally details of the accompanying CD.

A few words about the book’s subject. Thomas Pitfield (1903-1999) was a versatile British musician, poet, artist, and craftsman. Born in Bolton, Lancashire, he was self-taught as a composer, studying piano, cello, and harmony at the Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM). His works are known for their often light-hearted, folk influenced sound world. The orchestrations are masterly. His catalogue includes concertos for piano, violin, recorder, and percussion, as well as chamber music, cantatas, and opera. He held academic positions at the RMCM and the Royal Northern College of Music, where he taught notable pupils including John Ogdon, Ronald Stevenson, and John McCabe.

Pitfield was also a prolific poet and artist, authoring sundry poems and producing numerous illustrations and graphics. His four autobiographies provide insights into his life and creative process. He continued to compose and create art until his nineties, leaving behind a rich legacy.

Thomas Pitfield has not been the subject of detailed study by musicologists. Neither is his name a household one, even amongst habitues of Manchester’s concert halls and recital rooms. Until now, the interested listener has had to explore him through a limited selection of disparate sources, often tricky to consult. The current Grove’s Dictionary entry runs to just over three hundred words. Most important are four autobiographical studies. There are a couple of important articles in the Composer journal and Musical Opinion. Apart from that, the student relies on articles, reviews and obituaries in various newspapers and magazines. In the prestigious Manchester Sounds (Volume 4 2003-4) John Turner published ‘The Music of Thomas Pitfield: A Working Catalogue.’ This was a comprehensive list, along with details of some twenty publications that he had written, contributed to, or provided the illustrations for.

The first tranche of the book features the three of the four entertaining autobiographical texts.

No Song, No Supper is the first volume of Thomas Pitfield's autobiography, published in 1986. In this memoir, he recounts his early life and career. It details his experiences as an apprentice engineer, his self-taught musical journey, and his eventual studies at the RMCM. The narrative is filled with personal anecdotes, reflecting his modesty and dedication to his craft. It could be argued that this memoir exposes a deal of self-pity, reflected on seventy years after the events. He was brought up in a household devoid of cultural interests. Old age did give him a more stoical view on his youth than he must have felt at the time. Despite being the first of four volumes of autobiography, this covers much of his life until after the Second World War. The progress of the text appears as a series of vignettes, often unrelated to time, as limited dates are given. I do not have an original copy of this book in front of me, but it had various illustrations and photographs that have not been included here.

The second volume of Thomas Pitfield's autobiography, A Song After Supper, was issued in 1990, when he was 77 years old. The book investigates his experiences as a musician, educator, examiner, and visual artist, providing insights into his creative processes and the influences that shaped his art. There is more information here about his musical activities as well as his recollections about a galaxy of fellow musicians and artists.

According to the editors, Incidents from a Sixty Year Holiday Diary, the final volume of autobiography was published in 1998 by Kall Kwik, Altringham. I was unable to find any record of this book in the usual library catalogues. This is not a conventional ‘travel diary’ as such, but is about “a journey for most of their lives of two partners – man and wife, though with selected incidents from numerous holiday journeys…” These range from their first day of marriage to the time of publication. They are not printed chronologically, but as Pitfield seems to recall them. Places visited include Grange-Over-Sands, Hastings, Bath, and Cheshire. There are a few notes on foreign travel to France and Italy. This section included his poem “The Dee at Night” which was set by him as part of his song cycle, By the Dee, for voice, string quartet and piano.

The third volume of autobiography, A Cotton Town Boyhood has not been included in this present volume.

The heart of Endless Fascination are academic assessments of Pitfield’s accomplishment in the various artistic endeavours that interested him. The longest essay is ‘The Spontaneous Expression of a Direct and Simple Man: The Music of Thomas Pitfield.’ This is authored by Jeremy Dibble, a British musicologist and professor at Durham University. He specializes in British and Irish music from the 19th and 20th centuries, with a focus on composers like Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry.

Dibble investigates three chief topics: His ‘Life as a Composer,’ ‘The BBC broadcasting, and a brief encounter with film,’ and finally ‘Aspects of Pitfield’s Music.’ Considerable use is made of the autobiographical studies which have been supplemented with citations of letters to and from Pitfield, journal articles, reviews, and programme notes. This study is illustrated by select musical examples. Various stylistic influences are majored on, including his love of folksong, collected from Cheshire and Staffordshire, and folk dances, which featured in many pieces. Dibble investigates Pitfield’s contribution to ‘Solo art song.’ His poetic aesthetic was influenced by the Georgian Poets, promulgated by Harold Monro and his London based Poetry Bookshop. The last section of this essay is devoted to ‘Large-scale form and variation,’ which explores the Piano Concertos, the Concerto Lirico for violin and the Theme and Variations for String Orchestra. Dibble regards this as one of his finest compositions.

Stephen Whittle, a museum and gallery professional, discovers ‘Thomas Baron Pitfield: Artist and Craftsman.’ He explains that although having an “irrepressible determination to study music,” he had earlier “pleaded unsuccessfully” with his parents to allow him to take drawing lessons. In fact, cultural pursuits were discouraged in the young man’s household. As a teenager he discovered the writings of John Ruskin. He began to fill his early sketchbooks with landscapes and “fragments of pastoral poetry.” It was a rebellion against his parents. The chapter then looks at Pitfield’s contribution to carpentry and craft. He had been trained in woodworking by his father, who was a joiner and builder by trade. In 1930, he won a scholarship to the Bolton School of Art, where he studied the history of furniture making. The text includes photographs of items that he made. But then his interest developed towards textile designs, which he created with his wife, Alice.

The section continues with a discussion of Pitfield’s published volume of poetry and illustrated with reproductions of his linocuts. This interest in books extended to graphic designs for a wide range of products, including booklets, greetings cards for the Vegetarian Society, and posters for the Peace Pledge Union. He also designed sheet music covers, and examples are given of John Brydson’s Noah’s Ark and Benjamin Britten’s Simple Symphony. The concluding sub-section examines Pitfield’s achievement in water colour medium. This was taken up slightly later in life as a “pleasant foil and relaxation.” Wonderful examples are given of scenes in an around Cheshire and Manchester. Typically pastoral in mood, there is a melancholy watercolour of Farnworth (actually Prestolee) Locks near Bolton.

Professional librarian, formerly at the RNCM and then Hereford Cathedral, Rosemary Firman, has contributed an important chapter on Pitfield’s literary work. ‘Crafting Books, Weaving Word: Thomas Pitfield’s Books and Poetry’ explores different facets of his authorship. His approach to book production was a Morrisonian one: “Such a book contained it maker’s own words, written out, decorated, illustrated and bound by them.” Furthermore, the “ideal book was made from honest materials, using traditional skills, and was made with sincerity and joy.” In Firman’s opinion this very nearly matched the “best” of Pitfield’s books, whether published or hand-crafted. The “Serious Poetry” is then examined. Readers who warm to A.E. Housman and the Georgian Poets will appreciate Pitfield’s verse. Examples are quoted in the text. It is certainly not innovative poetry, nor is it confessional. For a North Countryman, it has none of the grittiness of Ted Hughes. “Book Arts” are then discussed in detail, with numerous examples of Pitfield’s calligraphy and bookbinding.

Stuart Scott’s brief discussion of ‘Thomas Pitfield and the Arts and Crafts Movement’ is essential reading. The artist “identified closely with this movement’s disenchantment with the impersonal, mechanisation direction of society and the seeking of a simpler, more fulfilling way of living.” This seems to have influenced the wide range of his artistic endeavour, which included “paintings, illustrations, prints, posters, cards, calendars, leaflets, music covers…and much more.” Scott declares that the book The Poetry of Trees “brought together all his interests, crafts, and skills. Here he declares himself the all-rounder, or complete artist.” Even Pitfield’s house in Bowden, Cheshire, conformed to William Morris’s Arts and Crafts dictum: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

The treatise ‘Archive of the Future: Wood in Thomas Pitfield’s The Poetry of Trees (1942)’ by Frederik Van Dam and Ghidy de Koning was originally published in a book Materials of Culture, published in 2023. I did find the entire paper a little bit new-agey. It is illustrated with photographs of the front cover and endpapers of this book. 

In the sixth chapter of ‘Section Two,’ John Turner discusses ‘Thomas Pitfield, Pacifist Composer.’ Whilst studying at Tettenhall College, Wolverhampton, he signed up to the Peace Pledge Union. This was at a time of rising dictatorships in Germany, Italy, and Spain. During the Second World War he registered as a conscientious objector but avoided prison by agreeing to continue teaching. Turner also explores Pitfield’s relationship with Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten. The latter was not a happy one. That said, he did design the cover for the full score of Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem and his Simple Symphony. Pitfield was a vegetarian and wrote the Parkdale Song for the Vegetarian Society.

Manchester-based photographer Michael Pollard has assembled a first-rate photographic gallery of Thomas Pitfield’s creations. This includes drawings and pencil sketches, design of embroidery, several pages from his extensive notebooks, as well as a broad selection of sheet music covers. I enjoyed the early watercolours of two Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway steam locomotives. Perhaps the most evocative images are his landscape watercolours, with my favourite being a sketch of Morecambe Bay dating from 1992. Even the briefest of glances at these pages reveal a remarkable diversity of talent in a wide range of media.

The third part of this volume is hard to summarise. It consists of more than thirty ‘Recollections and Appreciations’ from a wide variety of individuals.

The section opens with a charming memoir by Tom Pitfield’s niece, Norma Pitfield. She describes regular visits to her uncle and aunt’s house, their impact on her reading and her “artistic prowess." The memoir closes with the age-old regret – “…that I didn’t take more notice of all the things that my uncle said, played, made…”

There is a key essay by Max Paddison, Emeritus Professor of Music, and Aesthetics at Durham University. Paddison studied at the RMCM with Pitfield between 1964 and 68. Not having kept a diary at the time, he is writing (he says) with the benefit of hindsight. Paddison considers the ambience of the college at that date, Pitfield as a teacher and composer, including certain stylistic traits. And then there was impact of the “New Music” on himself and his educator. The introduction by John McCabe to Pitfield’s Selected Songs, Manchester Forsyth, 1989 is included. In this McCabe remarks that the perception that his style was “an agreeable kind of 18^th century pastiche” was both “inaccurate and unjust.” It is in the English pastoral school that he “stands much more clearly...” Other names will be familiar to listeners such as the pianist Peter Donohoe and the conductor Andrew Penny, who recorded Pitfield’s piano concertos for the Naxos label.

Well known personalities include Ronald Stevenson, Arthur Butterworth, David Ellis, and Anthony Gilbert. These four gentlemen, sadly all now passed away, were amongst a baker’s dozen who contributed their thoughts to the programme published for a celebratory concert at the Royal Northern College of Music, held on 20 November 2000.

I noted above the earlier version of the worklist prepared by John Turner. It has been updated for this volume.

One very telling chapter in Part 4 is a compilation by Stuart Scott of the ‘BBC Broadcasts of Music by Thomas Pitfield: A Chronological List.’ It is clear from these lists that performances have declined over the years. The first broadcast was in 1936, in a series featuring ‘Contemporary Composers of the North.’ There was a steady stream of concerts and recitals throughout the following four decades, with the ‘fifties and ‘sixties being particularly fruitful. Sadly, in the 1990s and the present century these transmissions have fallen by the wayside: between 1995 and 2024 there has only been four broadcasts. This reflects the fate of divers North Country composer such as John McCabe, David Ellis, Anthony Gilbert, and Alan Rawsthorne.

Equally unsatisfactory is the meagre sum of records and CDs dedicated to Pitfield noted in the Discography created by John Turner. Out of hundreds of pieces of music, only a couple of dozen have been recorded. The Lyrita CD of the Sonata No.1 in A for violin and piano was issued on SRCD359, and not SRCD 45 as shown in the text.

The concluding Part 5 consists of programme notes for Flying Kites: A Trafford Miscellany, the CD which accompanies the book. This disc was released in 2005 on the Campion Records label (Campion Cameo 2044). It featured numbers by Tom Pitfield and his “friends and acquaintances.” These included Martin Ellerby, Robin Walker, and John Ireland. The performers include Richard Baker (reciter), John Turner (recorder), Damien Harrison (percussion) and Keith Swallow (piano). MusicWeb International published evaluations by Rob Barnett, Colin Scott-Sutherland and Jonathan Woolf, here and here.

Finally, there is an essential index, which gives references to names cited in the text and to Pitfield’s achievement in all categories. It is extremely helpful.

The most striking thing about this remarkable book are the plethora of illustrations. Certainly, there are various photographs of Pitfield, his wife, and friends, but the bulk of the graphics are made up of designs and paintings by the man himself. Some of these have been noted above, especially in Michael Pollard’s ‘Photographic Gallery’ chapter. But from first opening the book the reader is captivated by Pitfield’s artwork, even extending to the endpapers and the book cover. Dr Rosemary Firman has done a sterling job in assembling the graphics for this project. She added the illustrations into the text. Examples can be seen here. The text was edited by John Turner, the doyen of North Country classical music, and chairman of the Pitfield Trust. Overall, the book was designed and realised by Simon Patterson. It is a fitting tribute to a remarkable polymath.

The production is outstanding. It is a large, heavy book, not to be taken on a train trip, flight, or a cruise; in fact, I studied most of it propped up on my desk. The paper is of the highest quality, complimenting the text and illustrations. The text is large, making it easy to read.

The book will be of immense value to several distinct types of reader. Most significantly, historians of British twentieth century music will find abundant information, which goes well beyond usual composer biographies and studies. Then, in the autobiographical sections there is significant material that will interest the social historian of the period, with an especial emphasis on the North Country of England. Art lovers will be impressed by the sheer volume of illustrations included.

I doubt that there are many forthcoming books about Pitfield “on the stocks” and I imagine that “stocks” of this wonderful book will not last forever. So, invest now!

Bibliographical Details:

Endless Fascination: The Life and Work of Thomas Pitfield, Composer, Artist, Craftsman, Poet
ed. Rosemary Firman and John Turner
ISBN 978-0-9514795-4-4
£40
Forsyth Brothers Limited (2024)