JAVS Fall 1991

57

Bridge's Chamber Works

In the Fall 1990 and Spring 1991 issues of JAVS, Two Pieces for Viola and Piano and Lament for Two Violas by Frank Bridge received favorable reviews. Although he wrote no major works for viola, his wri ting for this instrument is so rich and rewarding to play that I would like to describe some of his chamber music. "The kindly Frank Bridge, who was just as expert on the viola as he was at writing music," (Suite in Four Movements by Eric Coates, Thames, London, 1986) died fifty years ago at the age of sixty.. two. He left considerable output of chamber music and orchestral works, but no symphonies or operas, which may partly explain his lack of prominence as a British composer. Throughout the 1950's when I was a viola student at the Royal Academy in London, and then in the following decade when I played in the City of Birmingham, Halle and BBC Radio Orchestras, I never encountered a note of his music. However, in 1970 I came across his Trio (H.hapsody) for Two Violins and Viola, written in 1928, published by Faber in 1965 and described as "belonging to his last creative phase when he was exploring and absorbing influences from the continent in a way that few if any English composers then were" (LP notes by John Bishop). At that time I found the Trio complex and challenging; more recently I fully appreciated this one movement piece with its rhythmical passagework and contrasting lyricism. The following theme demonstrates the rhapsodic elements:

A few years ago the String Sextet was given a fine performance in New York when the Guarneri Quartet included it in a series at the Metropolitan Museum. Bridge began this work in 1906, after he had performed one of the Brahms sextets with the Joachim Quartet. It was completed in 1912 and published by Augener. A contemporary program annotator wrote, "As in the string sextets and quintets of Brahms, which seem in some ways naturally enough to have served as technical models, the texture of the music is notably clean throughout... in certain respects Bridge secures attractive contrasts of timbres about which Brahms does not seem to have cared" (Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music). Nowadays, this critical comparison seems curious in light of the rare performances of Bridge's music. I became familiar with this piece about twenty years ago and the soaring melodies and haunting second movement make it a welcome addition to the repertoire. Achieving a good balance among the instruments is not too problematic, especially when the viola themes are doubled by the first violin, as in this example: