Information
Composer: Frank Bridge
- Piano Quintet
- Three Idylls
- String Quartet No. 4
Piers Lane, piano
Goldner String Quartet
Dene Olding, violin
Dimity Hall, violin
Irina Morozova, viola
Julian Smiles, cello
Date: 2009
Label: Hyperion
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I’ve long regarded Frank Bridge’s comprehensive 1912 revision of his D minor Piano Quintet from seven years before as the sole comparative dud in his early chamber output – and not even this splendidly articulate rendering from Piers Lane and the Goldners can persuade me otherwise. The original work’s four movements are condensed to three, its centrepiece a gratefully lyrical amalgam of slow movement and scherzo enclosed within one of Bridge’s arch-like “phantasy” structures. Alas, the opening movement (after a promising start) soon drifts into a worryingly humdrum, sequential lassitude, and the finale fails to provide sufficient ballast to counterbalance what has preceded it.
The Three Idylls of 1906 (dedicated to Bridge’s bride-to-be, Ethel) are an infinitely more enticing proposition – exquisitely crafted, keenly proportioned and supremely touching miniatures for string quartet, the second of which later provided the 23-year-old Britten with the theme for his Op 10 Variations for string orchestra. The Fourth Quartet is utterly different again. Completed in 1937 after a near-fatal bout of bronchitis, this is arguably Bridge’s most rivetingly cogent and harmonically bracing statement, evincing a deftness, compassion and unerring intellectual scope that beg comparison with the greatest 20th-century examples in the medium.
These unfailingly sympathetic, flexible and exhilaratingly assured performances (that of the Quartet, on balance, the finest to date) have been most truthfully captured by the microphones; Bridge’s cataloguer Paul Hindmarsh provides the scholarly annotation. So, despite my purely musical strictures surrounding the Quintet, this is clearly a release to investigate, as well as a distinguished addition to the steadily growing Bridge discography.
-- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone
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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).
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Piers Lane (born 8 January 1958) is an Australian classical pianist. Born in London and grew up in Brisbane, he graduated with a Medal of Excellence from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, where his teacher was Nancy Weir. Lane first came to prominence at the inaugural Sydney International Piano Competition in 1977, at which he was named Best Australian Pianist. Since 2007, he is the artistic director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music held annually in Townsville. Lane has an extensive discography on the Hyperion label and has also recorded for EMI, Decca, BMG, Lyrita and Unicorn-Khanchana.
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The Goldner String Quartet is an Australian string quartet formed in 1995 in honour of Richard Goldner, the founder of Musica Viva Australia. The quartet consists of Dene Olding, Dimity Hall, Irina Morozova and Julian Smiles, who all are members of the Australia Ensemble. The Goldners have played throughout Australia and New Zealand, as well in the UK, USA, Korea, Finland, France and Italy, and with artists such as Boris Berman, Ian Munro, Piers Lane, Daniel Adni, Malcolm Bilson, Brett Dean and Slava Grigoryan. In August 2023 the Goldner String Quartet announced that the 2024 season would be its last.
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