Bridge: Suite for Strings; Two Entr'actes; Two Old English Songs; Valse intermezzo à cordes; Todessehnsucht; Two Intermezzi from Threads

The final volume of Chandos’s Bridge orchestral cycle is something of a mopping up exercise: plenty of short one-off pieces and arrangements of other works like the Two Entr’actes (reworkings of popular piano miniatures) and the movingly respectful Bach transcription Todessehnsucht. But there is one more substantial gem, the Suite for Strings – a work that deserves to be ranked alongside the better-known British classics for string orchestra (Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Britten and Tippett).

Our rating

4

Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:51 pm

COMPOSERS: Bridge
LABELS: Chandos
ALBUM TITLE: Orchestral Works, Vol. 5
WORKS: Suite for Strings; Two Entr’actes; Two Old English Songs; Valse intermezzo à cordes; Todessehnsucht; Two Intermezzi from Threads
PERFORMER: Roderick Williams (baritone); BBC NO of Wales/Richard Hickox
CATALOGUE NO: CHAN 10246

The final volume of Chandos’s Bridge orchestral cycle is something of a mopping up exercise: plenty of short one-off pieces and arrangements of other works like the Two Entr’actes (reworkings of popular piano miniatures) and the movingly respectful Bach transcription Todessehnsucht. But there is one more substantial gem, the Suite for Strings – a work that deserves to be ranked alongside the better-known British classics for string orchestra (Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Britten and Tippett). Its lilting English Romantic sweetness masks subtle mastery, while the haunting ‘Nocturne’ contains foretastes of the more disturbing emotional territory of the later, modernist Bridge. Hickox is very persuasive in this music, though there’s perhaps a shade too much world-weariness and too little supple vitality in the opening ‘Prelude’ of the Suite. Just as striking are the Two Intermezzi Bridge provided for the first and only production of Frank Stayton’s Threads in 1921, and which apparently upstaged the play for both critics and audiences. Pre-echoes here of Bridge’s later orchestral masterpiece Enter Spring. Recordings are excellent, apart from a slight hardness in the tone quality – soon accommodated, however. Not perhaps a rousing finale to Chandos’s very worthwhile Bridge project, but still well worth having. Stephen Johnson

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