I’ve begun to lose
track of how many times in these columns
(and elsewhere) reviewers have acknowledged
the debt music lovers owe to Chandos
and Richard Hickox. This ongoing Bridge
series is just the latest in a long
line of recording ventures that has
garnered universal critical praise.
Although many of the works have been
recorded before, Chandos’s standards
in terms of performances and sound quality
virtually ensure they become benchmarks
immediately.
This latest instalment
gets off to a thoroughly rousing, if
relatively uncharacteristic, start with
the one item billed as ‘premiere recording’,
the Coronation March.
I have certainly never thought of the
pacifist Bridge in terms of Elgarian
pomp and jingoism, and the failure of
the march to win the competition it
was composed for is no real surprise.
It’s not that it is badly written or
lacking swagger and exuberance – far
from it – but as Paul Hindmarsh’s excellent
note reminds us, ‘…Bridge’s penchant
for irregular phrase lengths, […] for
modal inflexions and for harmonic excursions
to remote keys are not the stuff of
popular marches’. Quite so, but that’s
just what makes this piece interesting
and subtly different. The sumptuous
orchestral palette and warm lyricism,
especially in the trio section, are
most winning and it is no surprise to
learn that as Bridge started work on
this march, he was in the process of
orchestrating what has become his best
known piece, The Sea.
Summer
is one of a trio of orchestral idylls
written whilst Europe was in turmoil
and the composer had ‘escaped’ to a
country retreat to brood on his own
inner turmoil. This probably explains
why any hint of English pastoralism
is balanced out by a wistful, haunting
quality in much of the piece. The gloriously
full melody that emerges from the shadows
at 4’56 is ravishingly memorable, but
I still sense amid the playfulness a
mood of anxiety that is never far below
the surface.
That sense of foreboding
and unease are very much to the fore
in the disc’s longest work, Phantasm.
Bridge calls this a rhapsody because
of the single movement form, but it
is clearly and rigorously organised.
The opening piano flourishes are based
around quite dissonant tritonic harmony,
perhaps suggesting the ghostly apparitions
of long-dead friends and colleagues.
This feeling is heightened as the work
progresses, particularly from 4’44 onwards,
where a weird danse macabre gets
underway. From here the piano winds
its way around squealing woodwind and
a crunching ostinato figure. There is
sun and light let in here and there,
but more often than not they are snuffed
out, usually by brass or the percussive
soloist, who make sure the piece ends
as darkly as it started. Hickox’s grasp
of the mood swings is masterly and the
orchestra is with him every step of
the way, relishing the many featured
solo passages. Howard Shelley plays,
as always, with complete technical and
intellectual assurance, and the whole
work, far from being depressing, has
an intense, sombre magic of the Rachmaninov
kind, brooding but ultimately exhilarating.
The impression for
small orchestra, There is a Willow
Grows aslant a Brook could well
be the most well-known piece on the
disc; it is certainly the most recorded.
Hickox is again exemplary in his control
of the subtle detail, the tiny shifts
of chromatic harmony that give the piece
its melancholy flavour. I grew up with
the old Neville Dilkes version on EMI,
but this Hickox performance is easily
as good as any I’ve heard in recent
years, beautifully gauged in its mood
and intensity.
The two lighter pieces
that end the disc lift the gloom and
provide perfect contrast to what has
gone before. The three delightful Vignettes
de danse are described by Hindmarsh
as ‘…light-hearted musical postcards
from a motoring holiday of the Alps
and Mediterranean coast’. The orchestral
colour and exoticism are seductive,
particularly the third, ‘Carmelita’,
an extrovert depiction of Spain.
The miniature dance
poem, Sir Roger de Coverley (A
Christmas Dance), was popular
from the word go, receiving prolonged
applause after its premiere (in orchestral
form) at the last night of the proms
in 1922. It makes a rumbustious, jovial
end to the disc.
It may seem a little
tiresome to recommend yet another Chandos/Hickox
collaboration wholeheartedly, but I’m
going to anyway. Hardened Bridge fans
may have their own particular favourites
from over the years, and Hickox certainly
doesn’t have the field to himself. But
standards of musicianship, recording
and presentation are incredibly high
here, and whether you are collecting
the whole series or not, if you invest
in this disc you will not be disappointed.
Tony Haywood
Howard Shelley (piano) 
