How stirring Bridge
can be at his best. Although Paul Hindmarsh
rightly observes that the sentiments
of Rupert Brooke’s "Blow out, you
bugles" are hardly in line with
Bridge’s passionately held pacifist
beliefs, he opens with a burst of Elgarian
panoply guaranteed to set the heart
leaping, and much expressive writing
follows, with striking quotations from
the traditional "Last Post"
motif. All the songs here, in fact,
contain innumerable illuminating touches
in their orchestrations and a generally
grateful if not always especially memorable
vocal line.
At the time of recording
Philip Langridge was only a couple of
months short of his 65th
birthday. I suppose a slight waveriness
under pressure might betray the passing
years, but by and large the voice retains
its rich quality – certainly I detected
no threadbare or dried out tone, while
his maturity as an interpreter is of
great benefit to the matter in hand.
Of Sarah Connolly’s
group I particularly appreciated "Mantle
of Blue". I’m afraid I will be
considered an unredeemable case by all
true Bridge lovers in the sense that,
while I love his finest works up to
the middle period ("The Sea",
"Summer", "Dance Poem",
the Cello Sonata and many smaller pieces),
I can’t always engage with his later
period, where his innate lyrical gifts
seem to be compromised by gratuitous
grittiness, however sincerely meant.
The two Tagore settings, "Day after
day" and "Speak to me, my
love", are a borderline case; beautiful
orchestral textures go to support some
lovely phrases which alternate with
what seems, however reverently sung,
a negation of melody. I’m sorry, but
at certain points I just don’t see why
the line should go up rather than down,
and vice versa, particularly in the
second song.
The three brief orchestral
pieces that follow show that Bridge
was from his early days able to turn
a deft hand to light music, and to do
it as well as specialists in the genre
such as Fletcher or Ewing. Agreeable
potboilers, I daresay, but what a nice
tune the "Berceuse" has. "The
Pageant of London" maybe needs
the full original orchestration including
18 clarinets, 6 cornets, 6 horns and
so on to be heard in all its splendour,
but all the same the new edition for
more practical forces on which the present
recording is based should be taken up
gratefully by wind bands: two swinging
marches frame three very charming inner
movements, one based on a theme later
made famous in Warlock’s "Capriol
Suite". "A Royal Night of
Variety" is a very brief "fanfare
in reverse", as Hindmarsh puts
it, yet Bridge succeeds in stamping
his personality on it.
This is, I presume,
the last in Chandos and Hickox’s Bridge
series; a reference to Hindmarsh’s thematic
catalogue of the composer shows that
only a very few scraps would remain;
one of the Coronation Marches (1901
and 1911) seems to have been omitted,
as has "An Irish Melody" (the
orchestration of which simply constituted
adding a double bass part to a work
for string quartet), while the "Chant
d’espérance" included here
is one of three "Morceaux d’orchestre",
of which we are told it is "by
far the most successful". Still,
there would have been room here for
the other two. Also, one or two more
songs seem to have orchestral accompaniments
and a really complete edition should
maybe have picked all this up along
the way. But never mind, to all intents
and purposes Bridge’s orchestral output
is now completely available in thoroughly
professional performances and recordings.
This last disc may look like barrel
scraping – all the previous five have
at least one major work on them – but
I hope it will not be turned aside by
those who have collected the series
thus far, for the songs in particular
have much to offer, or for that matter
by those who didn’t collect the earlier
issues, having most of the music on
earlier Lyrita and EMI discs, since
everything here except the Tagore songs
and two of the short orchestral pieces
is a première recording. Those
new to Bridge are advised to start with
the EMI collection under Sir Charles
Groves (in preference to a similar programme
on Naxos under James Judd).
Christopher Howell
Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano) (2), Philip Langridge
(tenor) (1) 
