Repertoire: Discover Frank Bridge's Evocative Tone Poems
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ส.ค. 2020
- Aside from his fame as Benjamin Britten's teacher, Frank Bridge hovers on the fringes of the repertoire, even in his native England, but he was a composer of genuine substance and creative daring. His three iconic tone poems (The Sea, Summer, and Enter Spring) are all available on convenient, single discs, with the best of them featuring James Judd with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on Naxos. Try it--you'll like it!
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There’s another, wonderful late quasi-tone poem, ‘There is a willow grows aslant a brook’ with even darker, almost atonal harmonic colorations. There’s Scriabin and Berg in the mix as well.
Bridge is definitely one of my favorite underrated composers. I only recently discovered his “Lament” for string orchestra, dedicated to a girl named Catherine, who died on the Lusitania cruise ship in 1915 when a German submarine sank her during WWI. I get misty-eyed every time I hear that work. Thanks David for presenting this great composer.
Love Frank Bridge - I would say get everything! Most of the earlier stuff is wonderfully tuneful too
For anyone interested in acquiring a second disc of Bridge, containing the two later, "gnarly" works Ovation and Phantsm, consider a really nice Lyrita offering with the LPO and cellist Julian Lloyd Webber (Ovation) and pianist Peter Wallfisch (Phantasm).
I’d like to offer a rebuttal to the assertion that Bridge’s early music is forgettable or stylistically derivative. His works of the 1900s and 1910s show impeccable compositional craftsmanship, and his chamber music in particular was award-winning. He entered Several of his works into Walter Wilson Cobbett’s competitions. I recommend anyone to have a listen of Bridge’s first two string quartets, his string sextet, and his piano quintet in particular. Also his suite for strings from 1900.
-An avowed Bridgeite, probably the most ardent you’ll ever meet!
Omg his music is just, breathtaking! Was listening to The Sea, on way to church this morning and oh wow! ❤❤❤
I got to know Bridge obviously through his association with Benjamin Britten. I really like Tod Handley's Chandos' version of The Sea, coupled as it is with Britten's Four Sea Interludes/Passacaglia and Bax's On the Sea-Shore. His work is really worth getting to know (Oration is wonderful, and miniatures like the passionate and lyrical 3 Idyll's for string quartet (distinct Debussy influence there) which also provided the theme for Britten"s Bridge Variations are fantastic.
This is gorgeous music. Thank you very much for the recommendation. One more item to add to the shopping cart.
Until seeing this review, I only knew “The Sea”. Bridge’s “Summer” and “Enter Spring” are a revelation! Thanks David for making these pieces known to me.
Compare The Sea’s slow movement with the slow movement of Britten’s Four Sea Interludes. Hear the similarity?
Thank you once again for introducing me to another composer. I discovered these works under Sir Charles Groves and, wow, what a delight. I think I will get these works with Groves conducting. Great orchestra and great sound too.
When I was in Grad school in Miami I had great fortune to work under Judd a couple of times and it was very musical 👍
Yes! Thanks for posting this Dave. I love The Sea (and Debussy’s, and Glazunov’s too).
Dave: calls music "gnarly"
Me: hits thumbs up
Thanks David. So good to see you sharing info such as this. Bridge wrote some superb music.
Thanks for reviewing these wonderful pieces. Though I have several recordings of each, I just ordered the Judd! Since LP days I’ve had a fondness for The Sea, conducted by Groves. I also have his big box. Good recommendation!
So pleased to see FB given a good review. At his best, he is a wonderful composer. These three pieces are all exemplary. I especially love the Bridge recording by Charles Groves (great unsung British conductor).
Who would put a 'thumbs down' for Frank Bridge!
Beats me. Some people need to get a life.
Probably a Havergal Brian fan.
The only Bridge work I can say I've heard hitherto is "There Is a Willow Grows Aslant a Brook," which seemingly used to be a favorite of the program directors at WQXR. Or maybe I just remember that piece on account of the unusual and evocative title, from Shakespeare. As I recall, the music sounds like it might have been composed by Butterworth; or again, maybe I only think that now, in retrospect, because of the title.
The march from Enter Spring, just heard for the first time, sounds to me very much like something by Miklós Rózsa, yet it no doubt predates Rózsa by a number of years.
Agree completely about Sir Charles Groves. I've never been disappointed by any of his recordings.
Butterworth did indeed a work with a similar title: The Banks of Green Willow, and it’s enchanting, but probably not in the same league as the Bridge (which is a work for chamber orchestra- the title is of course a quotation from Hamlet)
The Chandos vol 1to 6 can be had for £18. The problem is that often Chandos tend not to reprint so once it is sold out that's it unless they re- release it. Anyway your mentioning the Chandos had me buy it.
The Chandos box has Bridge's orchestral works which express the space historically between Butterworth and Britten.
Naxos sounds great. Wonderful fresh works. Chandos is great for lots of context.
His works are short so they should be easy to programme.
Having listened to the Sea, i am getting hung up on the Moonlight movement. Undertones of Rodger's and Hart "Blue Moon" which was composed (1931) some years later. Then I am reading "Blue Moon" may have been composed by a Son of Polish Migrant aged 17 year old called Edward Roman. Nothing is black or white or even blue
The only Frank Bridge I know is The Sea, and the theme that you played is always the part I remember most. It's a really good work, with very evocative movement titles. I am surprised orchestras in the states don't play the work more often (if they do at all). It seems like something they would easily be able to market.
My orchestra played it!
@@DavesClassicalGuide Quite impressive. The first time I heard the work was on a Sea-themed cd with the Long Beach Symphony under JoAnn Falletta, so presumably it comes up from time to time, although I am sure not a lot.
We need a Naxos James Judd/NZSO box😁
Enter Spring is my favorite, and its orchestration shows Bridge like a very gifted composer. Besides the tone poems, I also enjoy Phantasm for piano and orchestra and Oration for cello and orchestra. The tone poems Isabella and Midnight are not as succesful IMO, but they're enjoyable enough.
Thank you for this! I like Bridge very much. I'm a Britten-addict, and so I came to Bridge (and Ireland). Meanwhile, Bridge is much more for me than just Britten's teacher. He's one of the very few British composers of his time, who seems to have understood, what Debussy, Ravel and, maybe, Schönberg have done. My first experience was "Rebus", a gorgeous work in my opinion. Then came the three tone poems - then the fourth, "Isabella", okay, less interesting but better than "Macbeth" or "Death and Transfiguration" by Strauss. And then came "Phantasm" and "Oration", which are now my preferred Bridge-pieces. I find the combination of relatively simple melodic material and chromatic harmony very interesting. Schreker did sometimes a similar thing. I hope that your contribution helps that Bridge becomes more widely known. He would deserve it.
Thank you, and yes, he does deserve it!
Yes, Rebus is quite marvellous!
Hello David, do you know by any chance the composer Claude Loyola Allgén? (I'm asking for a friend)
Sorry, I don't.
Just bought the Judd on iTunes
I used to go to concerts of the Florida Phil and Florida Grand Opera conducted by James Judd
Very informative and enjoyable. Lots of stuff to learn here. But as an Englishman you're setting off my paranoia again. Our main musical strengths as a group of islands have been in folk and pop music imo, rather as in the States. So yeah, if you're a composer of 'classical' music, mainland Europe is the place to be.
Put your paranoia in neutral! The annoying thing is not that the UK isn't strong in classical music; Think about it--England mostly avoided participating in all of that avant-garde nonsense that's already yesterday's news, whereas a whole raft of 20th century English composers entered the repertoire and likely will remain there. There's nothing not to be proud of, and it's a GOOD thing when others take an interest, not a threat.
@@DavesClassicalGuide OK David, as long as you and the guys of '76 aren't after me.
Stuart Clarke
Only strong in folk and pop music?
Lots of great composers including:
Byrd
Gibbons
Purcell
Elgar
Vaughan-Williams
Britten
Tippett
R. Simpson
Maw
Whettam
Maconchy
In fact I can’t believe this nonsense is still believed.