Frank Bridge (1879 -1941)
Phantasie Quartet
Novelletten
Three Idylls
An Irish Melody: Londonderry Air
Sir Roger de Coverley
Sally in Our Alley
Cherry Ripe
Three Pieces
Since Frank Bridge's death in 1941 his music has been unduly
neglected, although his name is at least recalled in the homage paid him by
his pupil Benjamin Britten in his Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, using
a theme from the second of the Three Idylls. Bridge was born in Brighton in
1879 and studied violin and composition at the Royal College of Music in London,
continuing the latter study under Stanford. As a performer he established a
place for himself as a violist, in particular in the English String Quartet,
and as a conductor with the New Symphony Orchestra, at Covent Garden and in
other important engagements with major orchestras in the English capital.
As a composer Bridge developed a voice of some originality.
A series of chamber works and songs won a ready public in the early years of
the twentieth century, with larger scale orchestral compositions, symphonic
poems and suites. His style developed in a radical way after the 1914-18 war,
the change marked by his Piano Sonata, written between 1921 and 1924. The influence
of Schoenberg's pupil Alban Berg becomes apparent, reminding us that Britten
had once hoped to be allowed to study with Berg. Bridge, however, retains an
English element in his harmony and musical language, although the new form that
his music had taken isolated him from the insular traditions of many of his
established contemporaries.
The Phantasie Quartet, in F minor, was written in 1905 in response
to Walter Wilson Cobbett, compiler of the useful Cyclopaedia of Chamber Music
and an enthusiastic amateur violinist, owner of a Guadagnini instrument and
other valuable violins. In 1905 he established a prize for a phantasy string
quartet, analogous to the Elizabethan fancy or fantasy, a single-movement sectional
work, then for consort of viols. The first quartet prize was won by W. Y. Hurlstone
and Bridge won a prize in 1907 for his Phantasy Trio, while other winners included
Armstrong Gibbs, Herbert Howells and John Ireland. Bridge entered his Phantasy
Piano Quartet of 1910 for the same award. The essential element in the traditional
form that Cobbett was seeking to encourage was the use of a single movement
with related but contrasting sections.
The first section of the F minor Quartet is marked Allegro
moderato and opens emphatically before the march-1ike tread of the first theme,
leading to idyllic music that must recall the contemporary idiom of Ravel in
texture, contour and feeling, in particular the latter's Introduction and Allegro
in its octave doublings of melody. The Andante moderato has stronger suggestions
of English idiom in its opening, while the final section, Allegro ma non troppo,
allows an element of romanticism that is remote from the world of Elizabethan
consort music. Cobbett's chosen antiquarian title by now had other connotations,
although the general language remains English.
Novelletten, a title that must recall Schumann, were written
in 1904, but foreshadow something of the path Bridge's harmonic idiom was to
take. The first has particular interest in its string-writing and in its shifts
of tonality, moving in its gentle opening and conclusion. Plucked notes start
the second piece, a Presto, with its chromaticism and tender relaxation of tension
at its heart. The third of the Novelletten opens firmly, an Allegro vivo that
finds time to recall the material of the other two movements before ending as
it began.
The Three Idylls were written in 1906, the year after the Phantasie
String Quartet. The initial Adagio molto espressivo offers an intense C sharp
minor, dark-hued and melancholy, moving into a serene E major, before exploring
the tonic major in a mood of gentler lyricism. As always Bridge handles the
textures of the string quartet with the mastery to be expected of a musician
familiar also as a player with the medium and its repertoire. The first Idyll
ends as it began, in a mood of sombre nostalgia.
This is only partially lightened by the second Idyll, marked
Allegretto poco lento, although the music moves forward now into gentle lyricism.
The final Allegro con moto is cheerful in feeling, once again suggesting the
idiom of Ravel, to whom Bridge may be seen as a contemporary and independent
counterpart at this stage in his career.
The Irish Melody, popularly known in England as the Londonderry
Air, is treated imaginatively in the string quartet version composed by Bridge
in 1908. Here the well known melody only gradually emerges, appearing towards
the end of the work, although it has been foreshadowed in the intricate interplay
that has gone before. Sir Roger de Coverley, written in 1922 and also existing
in a version for string orchestra, makes use of a similar technique, in a lighter
vein, the fiddle tune answered by the lower strings in an interwoven texture.
Sir Roger does not have it entirely his own way, since Auld Lang Syne appears
eventually as a counter-melody, in witty and skilful counterpoint. 1916 had
brought two other compositions based on traditional tunes, Sally in Our Alley
and Cherry Ripe. The first of these allows the melody initial prominence, with
harmonies of increasing intensity, while Cherry Ripe offers a cheerful contrast
of mood, its melody initially suggested and fragmentarily interwoven before
it is finally heard.
The Three Pieces, here recorded for the first time, start with
the briefest Allegretto, followed by the third of the set, marked Moderato,
almost as short and gently evocative in Bridge's earlier style. These are followed
by the second of the group, now placed third, an Allegro marcato, in the manner
of a syncopated light music introduction to a seaside entertainment, an elegant
touch of Brighton Pier .
