Frank Bridge - Piano Music Vol. 3 (Peter Jacobs)

Information

Composer: Frank Bridge

1. Three Sketches: 1. April
2. Three Sketches: 2. Rosemary
3. Three Sketches: 3. Valse Capricieuse
4. The Hour Glass: 1. Dusk
5. The Hour Glass: 2. The Dew Fairy
6. The Hour Glass: 3. The Midnight Tide
7. Graziella
8. Miniature Pastorales, Set 3: No. 1
9. Miniature Pastorales, Set 3: No. 2
10. Miniature Pastorales, Set 3: No. 3
11. Miniature Suite: 1. Chorale
12. Miniature Suite: 2. Impromptu
13. Miniature Suite: 3. Caprice
14. Miniature Suite: 4. March
15. Three Lyrics: 1. Heart's Ease
16. Three Lyrics: 2. Dainty Rogue
17. Three Lyrics: 3. The Hedgerow
18. Bach: Come Sweet Death
19. Sonata: I
20. Sonata: II
21. Sonata: III

Peter Jacobs, piano

Date: 1990

Label: Continuum

-----------------------------------------------------------

Review

Initially released as separate volumes, these pioneering recordings of Frank Bridge’s piano works have now been gathered together into a three CD set. Peter Jacobs, a passionate advocate of this music, holds the distinction of being the first pianist to record the complete piano oeuvre. It took many years for Bridge’s music to gain the recognition it truly deserves. Now it’s regularly performed, and many of his major works have been recorded. Although the composer’s major achievements were in orchestral and chamber music, the piano works hold a very special place. Bridge was a more than competent pianist and his piano works, for the most part, were written to supply a demand for salon music from amateurs and professionals. So we have miniatures, characteristic genre pieces and, on a more elevated plane, the admirable Piano Sonata of 1924. Many of the pieces have evocative titles such as Sunset, Fireflies, April and Dusk, often titled at the publisher’s behest to entice the prospective purchaser.

The piano works span most of the composer’s creative life, embracing early light minatures as Pensée fugitive and Scherzettino, dating from his time at the Royal College of Music, when he was a pupil of Stanford, to the late works of the 1920s which are more progressive, forging new ground. In 1905 Bridge was very productive as he started to establish a reputation in musical circles. From this fertile period came the Capriccio No. 1, an entry piece for a competition, which Bridge won. It’s elfin-like puckishness is capricious and whimsical. A Sea Idyll and Capriccio No. 2, both dedicated to the pianist Harold Samuel, date from the same year. The lapping waves of the barcarolle-like former piece contrasts with the bravura displays in the latter.

The Dramatic Fantasia is an ambitious score, composed for a college friend Florence Smith in 1906. Hidden away for decades, it only surfaced in 1978 and was premiered a year later at Wigmore Hall by Peter Jacobs. Originally entitled ‘Sonata’, Bridge later considered it sufficient to stand alone, so assigned it the title it now holds. It combines virtuosity and lyricism, and is suffused with lush romanticism. Published in 1913, the Three Piano Pieces reveal Bridge as the accomplished miniaturist. Columbine is a waltz, mercurial and aromatic. Minuet sits centre-stage, and a languid and ruminating Romance rounds things off. The tragic drowning of a family of friends on the Lusitania in 1915 inspired the little Lament. As befits the circumstances, its mood in sombre and elegiac. The Fairy Tale Suite was composed in 1917. The four pieces are reminiscences of childhood. The Princess is a dainty waltz, followed by The Ogre, characterized by a growling persistence. The Spell exudes a diaphanous luminosity, conferring an air of peace and tranquility. Finally, The Prince ends the cycle in a mood of upbeat confidence.

Three Improvisations for the Left Hand (1918) were written for the pianist Douglas Fox, who had lost an arm in the war. At Dawn is dreamy and brooding, whilst A Vigil, employing dragging chords, is meditative. The final piece in the triptych is A Revel, where the hand runs up and down the keyboard, imitating a technical study. Gargoyle delights for its wit and impishness. It dates from 1928 and is said to be the most advanced of Bridge’s piano works, incorporating bitonality, stark dissonances and textural complexity.  The Hour Glass (1919-20) is a suite of three pieces, each with an evocative title: Dusk, The Dew Fairy and The midnight Tide. The central piece is my favorite. The shimmering cascades of notes have a magical quality, and Jacobs’ myriad colour palette confers some glorious pastel shades on the music. The Midnight Tide recalls Debussy’s La Cathédrale engloutie in its sonorous resonances. Graziella from 1925 is a deeply personal utterance, both questioning and elusive.

The Piano Sonata, the product of three years gestation, completed in May 1924, dwarfs the other pieces in ambition, scale, significance and intensity. Bridge dedicated it to his composer friend Ernest Farrar, killed in action during WWI. The work is in three movements, played without a break. The opener is bleak and forbidding, craggy and gripping, with dissonant harmonies agonizing in their cries. Yet, Bridge doesn’t skimp on lyricism. Drama and urgency run the course. The slow movement is elegiac, as the composer ponders the utter futility of war and the loss of a cherished friend. After a slow introduction, the finale settles into a march-like rhythm, recalling themes from the first movement. Bridge calls time with a potent, stormy coda.

Peter Jacobs’ firmly committed performances will, I’m sure, win these masterful scores many friends. The two London venues provide an ideally sympathetic ambience and acoustic. The accompanying liner notes by Calum MacDonald are superbly detailed, with insightful commentary on the pieces. There’s a competing cycle by Mark Bebbington on Somm and an ongoing one on Naxos by Ashley Wass. I’ve heard neither to offer any comparisons, but this one by Jacobs will certainly do me fine.

-- Stephen Greenbank, MusicWeb International

-----------------------------------------------------------

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

***

Peter Jacobs (born 17 August 1945) is an English pianist. He was born in London and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Jacobs made his solo debut at the Wigmore Hall on 9 May 1975 with a programme of little-known 20th century composers. He has continued to concentrate on out-of-the-way (particularly English and French) repertoire of the late 19th and 20th centuries throughout his subsequent career. Jacobs is an Associated Board examiner, and has also served as head of keyboard at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, taking courses in the music of Schubert, Chopin and Mendelssohn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jacobs_(pianist)

-----------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks

Links in comment

Enjoy!