Thomas Baron Pitfield (5 April 190311 November 1999) was a British
composer,
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
,
artist,
engraver,
calligrapher
Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...
,
craftsman,
furniture builder and
teacher
A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.
''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...
.
Life
He was born in
Bolton
Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th ...
to elderly parents whose strict
Victorian values and lack of support for his creative interests led his withdrawn from school at 14 for a seven-year
engineering apprentice An engineering apprenticeship in the United Kingdom is an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering or electrical engineering or aeronautical engineering to train craftsmen, technicians, senior technicians, Incorporated Engineers and Chartered Engin ...
ship with
Hick, Hargreaves & Co. Ltd, his designs for
transmission machinery for the
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
industry survive with
indian ink and
watercolour painting
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...
s of railway engines.
Although he was essentially self-taught as a composer, he studied
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
,
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...
and
harmony at the
Royal Manchester College of Music
The Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM) was a tertiary level conservatoire in Manchester, north-west England. It was founded in 1893 by the German-born conductor Sir Charles Hallé in 1893.
In 1972, the Royal Manchester College of Music ...
, where his teachers were Thomas Keighley,
Frank Merrick
Frank Merrick CBE (1886–1981) was an English pianist and composer in the early 20th century.Obituary, ''The Times'', 21 February 1981, p. 14
Life
Merrick was born in Clifton, now part of Bristol, the son of musical parents.Methuen-Campbell, J ...
and Carl Fuchs.
["Obituary: Thomas Pitfield"](_blank)
independent.co.uk. Retrieved 18 February 2023. 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
Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians ...
. Whilst there, as a
pacifist, he joined the
Peace Pledge Union
The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) is a non-governmental organisation that promotes pacifism, based in the United Kingdom. Its members are signatories to the following pledge: "War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determin ...
. In the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, 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,
John Golland
John Golland (Ashton-under-Lyne, 14 September 1942 - Dukinfield, 14 April 1993) was an English composer.
He is most famous for his works for brass band, such as ''Sounds'', ''Atmospheres'', ''Peace'', ''Rêves d'Enfant'', his two euphonium co ...
,
John McCabe,
John Ogdon,
Philip Spratley and
Ronald Stevenson
Ronald James Stevenson (6 March 1928 – 28 March 2015) was a Scottish composer, pianist, and writer about music.
Biography
The son of a Scottish father and Welsh mother, Stevenson was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1928. He studied at the ...
.
Pitfield was a lifelong
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter.
Vegetariani ...
.
Between 1986 and 1993 he wrote a three volume
autobiography. He continued to create art and music until his nineties. He died in
Bowdon,
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...
, in 1999.
Composition
As a composer Pitfield was influenced by
Ralph Vaughan Williams,
Percy Grainger
Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...
and
Frederick Delius
Delius, photographed in 1907
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius ( 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934), originally Fritz Delius, was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted atte ...
. He was a prolific composer and his compositions include collections of miniatures for students and amateurs, a five-movement ''Sinfonietta'', a Trio for flute, oboe and piano, concertos for piano, violin,
recorder
Recorder or The Recorder may refer to:
Newspapers
* ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper
* ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US
* ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...
and percussion, a
Xylophone
The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...
Sonata, an Oboe Sonata, 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
Léon Jean Goossens, CBE, FRCM (12 June 1897 – 13 February 1988) was an English oboist.
Career
Goossens was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, and studied at Liverpool College of Music and the Royal College of Music. His father was violinist and ...
,
Evelyn Rothwell,
Archie Camden
Archie Camden (9 March 1888 – 16 February 1979) was a British bassoonist; he was a pedagogue and soloist of international acclaim. His career began in 1906 when he joined the Hallé Orchestra, where he became principal bassoonist in 1914. I ...
, Dolmetsch, and
Osian Ellis.
His music was published by more than 50 publishers.
Hubert J. Foss
Hubert James Foss (2 May 1899 – 27 May 1953) was an English pianist, composer, and first Musical Editor (1923–1941) for Oxford University Press (OUP) at Amen House in London. His work at the Press was a major factor in promoting music and ...
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
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
's ''
Simple Symphony
The ''Simple Symphony'', Op. 4, is a work for string orchestra or string quartet by Benjamin Britten.
It was written between December 1933 and February 1934 in Lowestoft, using material that the composer had written as a young teenager, between 1 ...
''.
References
External links
In memoriam Thomas Pitfield: Master of arts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pitfield, Thomas
1903 births
1999 deaths
20th-century classical composers
20th-century classical pianists
20th-century English composers
20th-century British male musicians
20th-century British musicians
British conscientious objectors
English autobiographers
English classical composers
English classical pianists
English designers
English male classical composers
British male pianists
English pacifists
Light music composers
Male classical pianists
People from Bolton