Pitt, Percy

Pitt, Percy – Ballade for Violin and Orchestra op. 17

(b. London, 4 January 1869 – d. London, 23 November 1932)

Preface
Percy Pitt was unusual among British composers of the late 19th century because he studied, not in England, but at Leipzig Conservatory and the Royal Academy at Munich, under Carl Reinecke and Josef Rheinberger. Returning, he worked at the Queen’s Hall for many years, initially as an accompanist, performing in the earliest Promenade Concerts in 1897. He became Music Adviser to the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, working for André Messager, and later worked for Hans Richter, preparing the chorus for two Ring cycles in the early years of the 20th century. He later worked for the Beecham Opera Company before being appointed the first Director of Music of the infant BBC in 1923. As such he made many broadcasts conducting the BBC Military Band and commissioned Gustav Holst to write Hammersmith (MPH score 4664). His conducting was always unusual: “He had a habit of burying his head in the score and waving his arms over his head like a gesticulating stag beetle. This habit rather detracted from the personal magnetism which great conductors exercise, owing to the orphaned orchestra seeing nothing less abstract than a baton” (quoted by his biographer, Daniel Charmier, 1938).
During all this time, Pitt wrote music. He did not catalogue his output very well, and some compositions are missing (his list of opus numbers has large gaps). But the opus 17 Ballade does exist in two forms, for violin and orchestra and for violin and piano, in which both are intended as concert works. They are associated with the great violinist Ysayë, who performed it more than once, first in February 1900 with the Queen’s Hall orchestra under Henry Wood. The work was praised for its “full-blooded richness of colour”. Ysayë played it again in Dresden. The work is a single movement of many moods, mostly delicately scored but with dramatic outbursts.

Phillip Brookes, 2025

For performance material, please contact Novello, London

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