Plus String Chamber Music
Divine Art ddx 21246
Divine Art ddx 21137
Here are three discs celebrating the musical accomplishment of Thomas Pitfield and his contemporaries.
Thomas Pitfield (1903–1999) was a largely self-taught as a composer, but he was also an influential teacher, artist, engraver, poet, writer, skilled furniture maker, and ornithologist. He was always writing music for friends, and it is good to hear this music, because it is excellent!
The first item (a two-disc set) juxtaposes Pitfield’s works with those of his contemporaries and friends, and is a delight. The variety of instrumentation is also a boon. Pitfield is represented by his Divertimento for oboe and string trio, first performed by Leon Goossens, his Three Nautical Sketches for recorder and string quartet (arranged by John McCabe) and a Carol Lullaby for soprano recorder and harp. Lesley jane Rogers is the soprano, and she also sings Joubert’s setting of Christina Rossetti’s Remember which he describes as Scena for soprano, recorder and string quartet. This isthe composer’slast work and written as a tribute to John Turner in recognition of his support for English composers.
She also performs Now Voyager, a setting of Walt Whitman by the contemporary composer Ernst Hermann Meyer. Meyer escaped Nazi Germany to come first to England and later back to Germany via Switzerland, where this work was written. The two composers never met but had similar socialist outlooks.
The disc has been carefully put together, and three songs by friends of Pitfield for soprano and recorder include works by Nicholas Marshall, Anthony Gilbert, and a winning setting of Blake’s Spring by John Turner, who features throughout the disc. His playing is always immaculate. There are more Blake setting in Three Blake Songs by Stuart Scott, a close friend of Pitfield’s and (like Nicholas Marshall) a pupil of Lennox Berkeley.
Longer works of note are the Fantasy Quartet for oboe and string trio by Moeran, a fine work in the Cobbett fantasia mode, and works by Geoffrey Poole and Richard Pantcheff. Short works by Jeremy Pike, Robin Walker, Gordon Crosse and Christopher Cotton complete the disc.
The disc devoted to Pitfield’s own compositions include the Sonata and Sonatina for his own instrument, the cello, an Epitaph for violin, cello and piano, and his two Piano Trios. Both are in three movements and are strong pieces with a natural feeling for melody, counterpoint, argument and structure. I particularly liked the Debussy-like opening of the first trio, which Pitfield completed in 1930, the lyrical opening of the second movement, and the stirring and heartfelt melodies of the finale. The second trio was completed eleven years later, but there is no record of a performance before the revival of the work in 1983 to celebrate Pitfield’s eightieth birthday. The overall mood is darker and the themes more angular. Both middle movements of these trios begin and end slowly with a middle fast section, and the middle movement of the second trio begins with a long and tortuous piano solo. The finale tries to be cheerful.
The substantial Cello sonata (1938) and the Cello sonatina published six years later are both significant work with something to say. The Sonatina is lighter than the Sonata: the latter has some bold ideas in the opening Variations movement. The third and final movement, although called Epilogue, begins and ends with bravura flourishes.
Everything on these discs is played with loving commitment. The front cover of the booklets of each is a painting By Pitfield of Weaver Bridge at Church Minshull, Cheshire.
Review by Ronald Corp