Frank Bridge - Orchestral Works Vol. 2 (Richard Hickox)

Information

Composer: Frank Bridge

• Dance Rhapsody
• 5 Entr'actes (from Emile Cammaert's play "The Two Hunchbacks")
• Dance Poem
• Norse Legend
• The Sea

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Richard Hickox, conductor

Date: 2002

Label: Chandos

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010012

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Review

This admirable anthology gets off to a stirring start with the roistering and tuneful Dance Rhapsody from 1908, presented for the first time in its uncut guise (go to 15'22" to hear the bounding measures that Bridge pruned in advance of a 1938 broadcast performance under Clarence Raybould). By contrast, the bewitchingly capricious Dance Poem of five years later exhibits an altogether more subtle harmonic and organic scope (and, like Bax’s contemporaneous Dance of Wild Irravel, at times even spookily anticipates Ravel’s La valse). Hickox directs both these appealing creations with gusto and affection, if without effacing memories of Nicholas Braithwaite and the LPO on a superbly engineered Lyrita LP (11/79 – nla; no sign yet, alas, of a CD transfer).

Elsewhere, Hickox and his fine band lavish care on the five engaging entr’actes Bridge wrote in 1910 for a London production of Emile Cammaerts’ fairy-tale play for children, The Two Hunchbacks (Bridge employs Belgian folk-tunes to match the Ardennes setting). We also get a shapely reading of the 1905 Norse Rhapsody (originally for violin and piano, and orchestrated in January 1938). As for The Sea (which left the 10-year-old Britten ‘knocked sideways’ when he heard Bridge conduct it at the 1924 Norwich Triennial Festival), I prefer the glorious opening ‘Seascape’ to move on just a fraction more than it does here. Otherwise, Hickox easily holds his own, locating plenty of playful mischief in ‘Sea-Foam’ and moulding the gorgeous ‘Moonlight’ with memorable tenderness (though both Handley and Britten bring a stronger grip to the music overall).

Excellent orchestral playing, some first-rate annotation by Paul Hindmarsh and characteristically ripe sound from Chandos help to cement a strong recommendation.

-- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone

More reviews:

ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Nov02/bridge_chandos2.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2002/nov/01/classicalmusicandopera.artsfeatures4

https://www.amazon.com/Dance-Rhapsody-Poem-Norse-Legend/dp/B00006JK97

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Frank Bridge (26 February 1879 – 10 January 1941) was an English composer, violist and conductor. He studied at the Royal College of Music under Charles Villiers Stanford and played in a number of string quartets, before devoting himself to composition. Being a strong pacifist, Bridge was deeply disturbed by the First World War, and his works during the war and immediately afterwards appeared to search for spiritual consolation. As a teacher, Bridge privately taught Benjamin Britten, who later championed his teacher's music and paid homage to him in the Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Bridge

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Richard Hickox (5 March 1948 – 23 November 2008) was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, then was an organ scholar at Queens' College, Cambridge. Hickox founded the City of London Sinfonia, as well as the Richard Hickox Singers and Orchestra, in 1971. He was Chorus Director of the London Symphony Chorus (1976 to 1991), Artistic Director of the Northern Sinfonia (1982 to 1990), Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (2000 to 2006), and Music Director of Opera Australia (2005 to 2008).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hickox

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