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The Songs of Frank Bridge (CD)
Critic’s Choice: New York Times, November 1997
Composer: Frank Bridge
Performer: Gerald Finley, Louise Winter, Janice Watson, Jamie MacDougall, Roger Chase
Released: July 8, 1997
Number of Discs: 2
Label: Hyperion
ASIN: B000003010
1. When most I wink, for voice & piano (Janice Watson)
2. If I could choose, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
3. The Primrose, for voice & piano (Jamie MacDougall)
4. A Dirge, for voice & piano (Louise Winter)
5. The Devon Maid, for voice & piano (Jamie MacDougall)
6. Dawn and Evening, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
7. Where'er my bitter teardrops fall, for voice & piano (Jamie MacDougall)
8. E'en as a lovely flower, for voice & piano (Jamie MacDougall)
9. Blow blow thou winter wind, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
10. Go Not, Happy Day, for voice & piano, H 34 (Jamie MacDougall)
11. Night lies on the silent highways, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
12. A Dead Violet, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
13. Cradle Song, for voice & piano (Janice Watson)
14. Lean close thy cheek, for voice & piano (Jamie MacDougall)
15. Fair Daffodils, for voice & piano (Janice Watson)
16. Adoration, for voice & piano (or orchestra), H 57 (Louise Winter)
17. So perverse, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
18. Tears idle tears, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
19. The Violets Blue, for voice & piano (Jamie MacDougall)
20. Come to me in my dreams, for voice & piano (Janice Watson)
21. My pent-up tears oppress my brain, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
22. Music when soft voices die, for voice, viola & piano (Louise Winter, Roger Chase)
23. Far far from each other, for voice, viola & piano (Louise Winter, Roger Chase)
24. Where is it that our soul doth go?, for voice, viola & piano (Louise Winter, Roger Chase)
25. All things that we clasp and cherish, for voice & piano (Janice Watson)
26. Love is a rose, for voice & piano (Janice Watson)
27. Dear when I look into thine eyes, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
28. Isobel, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
29. O That It Were So, for voice & piano (Louise Winter)
30. Strew No More Red Roses, for voice & piano, H 109 (Jamie MacDougall)
31. Where she lies asleep, for voice & piano (or orchestra), H 114 (Louise Winter)
32. Love went a-riding, for voice & piano (or orchestra), H 115 (Janice Watson)
33. Thy hand in mine, for voice & piano (or orchestra), H 124 (Louise Winter)
34. So early in the morning, O:--, for voice & piano (Janice Watson)
35. Mantle of blue, for high voice & piano (or orchestra), H 131 (Louise Winter)
36. The Last Invocation, for voice & piano (Louise Winter)
37. When you are old and gray, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
38. Into her keeping, for voice & piano (Jamie MacDougall)
39. What shall I your true love tell?, for voice & piano (Louise Winter)
40. 'Tis but a week, for voice & piano (Gerald Finley)
41. Day After Day, for voice & piano (Janice Watson)
42. Speak to Me My Love, for voice & piano (Janice Watson)
43. Dweller in My Deathless Dreams, for voice & piano (Jamie MacDougall)
44. Goldenhair, for voice & piano (Janice Watson)
45. Journey's End, for voice & piano (Jamie MacDougall)
What the critics say
Critic’s Choice:
Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 20 November 1997
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEEDD173BF933A15752C1A961958260
'The Songs of Frank Bridge'
Schubert wrote over 600 songs and all of them have been recorded at least once. The British composer Frank Bridge (1879-1941) composed just 45 songs and, until now, only a scattered few have made it to recording. So the new two-disk set of Bridge's complete songs on Hyperion (CDA67181/2) is a welcome contribution. Bridge, a composer, conductor and violist, was one of the most complete and respected musicians of his days. Sadly, he is probably best known today for having taught composition to Benjamin Britten.
One of the many interesting aspects of this recording, which presents the songs chronologically, is its overview of the composer's development: we hear Bridge evolve from a promising conservatory student to a distinctive, mature professional. Bridge favored song texts of literary distinction and, with some notable exceptions, avoided setting poems that had already been set by others. In his first songs, composed when he was 22, you hear liquid, Faure-like textures, expansive Brahmsian melodies and wayward late-Romantic harmonies.
Some of the early efforts merely aim to appease an Edwardian public's taste for drawing-room ballads. But by 1904, in songs like ''A Dead Violet'' to a poem by Percy Shelley, Bridge, just 25, showed boldness and skill: harmonies shift without warning, and pliant, often melodious, vocal lines give lift to the words, which are set with naturalness. Bridge's songs from after World War I, when he came under the influence of Alban Berg, are striking for their unhinged chromatic harmonies and kinetic, Expressionistic piano writing. The soprano Janice Watson, the mezzo-soprano Louise Winter, the tenor Jamie MacDougall and the baritone Gerald Finley divide the songs among themselves effectively, and sing them with the loving attention they deserve. The sensitive, nimble pianist is Roger Vignoles.
David Mermelstein , New York Times, 31 August 1997
…Frank Bridge took the 13-year-old Britten as his sole composition student in the mid-1920's. Britten, in one of his most enduring works, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, acknowledged the profound influence of his mentor. But Bridge was a distinguished composer in his own right, as some listeners and critics have only belatedly begun to realize.
A new set comprising all 45 of Bridge's extant songs (Hyperion CDA67181/2; two CD's) should help rectify the situation. As Britten would later do, Bridge drew on a wide range of (mostly) English poetry. And like his fellow English composers Roger Quilter, Peter Warlock and Gerald Finzi, Bridge possessed an unerring, unaffected knack for marrying text and music.
Bridge's songs couple introspective, distraught, besotted and humorous lyrics with wistful, soaring harmonies. Each item offers rewards, and some make especially strong impressions. Of particular interest are nine songs by Heine, in English translation, and three by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. For the rest, texts by Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Arnold, Coleridge and Joyce, among others, more than suffice.
The songs are performed here by four talented vocalists, Janice Watson, Louise Winter, Jamie MacDougall and Gerald Finley, and an excellent pianist, Roger Vignoles. Hyperion, in keeping with its high standards, includes full texts and lively, insightful annotations by Michael Pilkington; but Mr. Pilkington does not explain why Bridge, who lived until 1941, stopped writing songs in 1925.
Colin Scott-Sutherland
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/nov98/bridge.html
Almost two-thirds of Frank Bridge’s sixty or so songs belong to his early years - that is, up until about 1907/8. The general consensus (Anthony Payne, Professor Banfield, and here in the excellent sleeve notes by Michael Pilkington) is that Bridge, rather less well read in literature than his compatriots, wrote thoroughly professional songs which however probe none too deeply into the inner meanings of the verses he chose to set (many of which appear to have been selected by, or to please, his teacher Stanford.) Whatever the truth of that may be there is no doubt at all that, amongst those earlier songs that belong convincingly to the Edwardian salon, there are many of great charm and beauty. Bridge was mostly interested in instrumental composition, though, as Michael Pilkington points out, he still elected to write songs even although they remained unpublished for a considerable time and must thus have experienced some poetic compulsion. It is perhaps true to say that the finest of his songs (from that standpoint) are also now the most popular and well-known - Go not, happy day, E’en as a lovely flower, Come to me in my dreams and the astonishing Love went a-riding.
It is well known that, in the Piano Sonata of 1921/24, written in response to the death in action in 1918 of Ernest Farrar, Bridge’s expression underwent a kind of ‘sea-change’. While this development is less clearly marked in the songs, these two CDs usefully divide his vocal output, with the first disc recognisably covering the early years - up to around 1908. It was not long before the first strophic settings gave way to a freer treatment - favouring a varied second verse (in poems of three stanzas), frequently returning at the end to the opening music - while setting a single stanza or two verses entails repeating (usually) the earlier words. His choice of poets is unusual - of these 45 songs only two each are to words of Shakespeare and Herrick - Shelley (3), Keats (2) and Tennyson (3) are also represented. Yet there are nine settings of Heine (written between 1903/8) and four of Matthew Arnold. Both the latter occur roughly within certain periods, which does suggest that Bridge reacted musically to these particular poets.
The poems overall are in the main love songs - often melancholy, though the emotion is not oppressive. There are echoes of John Ireland and of Quilter - but the obvious influence is of German lieder. I hear echoes particularly of Joseph Marx (curiously Bridge’s unfinished Allegretto for viola and piano resembles quite closely the fugal subject in the 4th movement of Marx’s A major Violin Sonata.) There is also a markedly French influence in the expressive modulations which are very reminiscent of Fauré. The first disc concludes with the three songs for voice and viola - with the expressive instrumental obbligato pointing the emotion even more cogently than the vocal line - foreshadowing in its intensity the sonorities of the 1917 Cello Sonata - surely one of the loveliest chamber works in British music.
The second disc contains only three songs from this earlier period - and after 1908, no further songs appea../graphics/red until 1912 - and by 1913 (with Strew no more roses (Arnold) and When she lies sleeping (Mary Coleridge)) foreshadowings of the mature Bridge become clearer. Almost as if the discovery of Mary Coleridge’s verses set something free, the next song (May 1914) is Love went a’riding, a song unique in his pre-war output (‘tho So early in the Morning shares something of this ecstasy). The developing freedom of harmony and form of the next few songs is evident, although Tis but a week (to words by Gerald Gould) seems to hint retrospectively at his earlier settings of Dawn and Evening and Come to me in my Dreams) Apart from a brief and curious throwback in Joyce’s Goldenhair this development reaches its peak in the fine settings of Tagore, with their rhythmic, harmonic and melodic freedom. Here the theme of ‘hopelessly tragic love’ is fully expressed - with only the final Journey’s End (Humbert Wolfe) to suggest a final and totally negative mood. ‘There were to be no more songs’ … says Pilkington.
The composer is well served in this recording. Not many will have had the chance to consider Bridge’s songs in isolation - and the committed soloists sing quite beautifully - with a sensitive accompaniment as we would expect from Roger Vignoles, and richly expansive playing from the violist, Roger Chase. This is a must for all lovers of English song.