Search - Frank Bridge, Maggini Quartet :: Bridge: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 3

Frank Bridge, Maggini Quartet
Bridge: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 3
Genre: Classical

Track Listings (7) - Disc #1
1. Adagio - Allegro Appassionato
2. Adagio Molto
3. Allegretto Grazioso - Animato
4. Allegro Agitato - Allegro Moderato - Adagio Molto
5. Andante Moderato - Allegro Moderato
6. Andante Con Moto
7. Allegro Energico

CD Details

All Artists: Frank Bridge, Maggini Quartet
Title: Bridge: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 3
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: Naxos
Original Release Date: 1/1/2003
Re-Release Date: 10/21/2003
Genre: Classical
Styles: Chamber Music, Historical Periods, Classical (c.1770-1830)
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 747313213320

Synopsis

Album Description

Perhaps no other British composer of the first half of the twentieth century reveals a stylistic musical journey as great as Frank Bridge. His early works follow in the late-Romantic tradition bearing a kinship with Fauré; later Bridge comes close to Delius. After the First World War, however, his music became intense and chromatic. In his String Quartet No. 3 (1926), Bridge rubs shoulders with the early works of the Second Viennese School. Commissioned by the American patroness Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, it fully revealed for the first time Bridge?s advanced mature voice. The work?s language shows kinship with Berg and Bartók; the twelve semitones are constantly in play; octave doublings are avoided, and the music is driven by a relentless momentum. Bridge?s First String Quartet was written in haste in the space of a month in response to a competition organized by the Accademia Filarmonica, Bologna. Of the 67 quartets submitted only Bridge?s received a ?mention d?honneur?.

CD Reviews

First Bridge quartet is essential listening

jsa | San Diego, CA United States | 02/20/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Frank Bridge's first string quartet (1906), written in one month to meet the submission deadline for a music competition, is an inventive and appealing minor chamber masterpiece. Bridge, who studied violin and viola, wrote adeptly for strings - in my opinion, his chamber music is far and away his best work. The first quartet, twenty-nine minutes in this performance by the outstanding Maggini Quartet, holds your interest from the opening bars, is filled with good ideas, and is serious without ever being heavy. In short, an immensely rewarding piece of music.

The less accessible third quartet, which dates from considerably later in Bridge's career (1925-6), reflects a different aspect of the composer. Here lyricism has largely been replaced by agitation and dissonance; the Great War had had its effect as too had the atonal style of the Second Viennese School. The third quartet is quite different than one would expect from the composer of the lovely (and substantial) Phantasie Quartet and the like, and while I find it difficult listening it will appeal to those who appreciate Schoenberg, Webern and Berg.

Five stars for the first quartet, three for the third."