JAVS Fall 1991

61

The first two Quartets belong to Bridge's more accessible style of composition. The first, completed in 1906, contains some beautiful moments for the viola:

(Example 4 and 5 ... String Quartet No.1, first and fourth movements)

I am not so familiar with the Third and Fourth Quartets written during the 1920's when Bridge, greatly affected by the First World War, wrote music that was more dissonant than before, although never losing his passionate sincerity which I find so appealing. During the 1970's and 1980's, most of his chamber music was recorded, and in 1983 a Thematic Catalogue was compiled by Paul Hindmarsh. Frank Bridge: radical and conservative by Anthony Payne, (Thames, London, 1984) is also a useful book, particularly as it describes the Frank Bridge Trust administered by the Royal College of Music, where many manuscripts can be found including a 1901 Quintet with two violas. In 1966, Benjamin Britten (a third violist...composer in this article), in a tribute to his mentor, said "Bridge would play what I had written and demand if it was what I'd really meant. He taught me to think and feel through the instrument I was writing for; he was most naturally an instrumental composer and as a superb viola player, he thought instrumentally." Bridge's talents as violist, teacher, conductor and pianist may have hindered as well as helped his composing career. He was kept busy earning a living. He was a founding member of the English String Quartet which gave the first British performance of the Debussy String Quartet. I judge he knew the music of Scriabin and Faure; and his later works show considerable interest in atonal music and the influence of Berg whom he admired. He maintained a truly musical and personal idiom, and his contribution to twentieth... century music offers opportunity to assess changing styles during his lifetime. Veronica Jacobs New York, New York