Frank Bridge
Frank Bridge's music ranges from warm Edwardian lyricism and pastoral consolation to the leaner, post-tonal chamber and orchestral works of his maturity. Songs, string quartets and short instrumental pieces remain among the most heard.
Bridge's early chamber scores and salon miniatures, including the violin Souvenir, speak in a fluent late-Romantic voice. The war years brought pastoral and elegiac works that seek spiritual consolation, among them the Lament for strings. From the Piano Sonata onward his harmony grows more colouristic and non-functional, feeding substantial pieces such as the later string quartets and Oration for cello and orchestra. Short organ works and art songs have kept his name in recital programmes even when the larger late scores were less often heard.
Compositions by Frank Bridge appear on
Souvenir
An engaging collection of violin and piano works, several drawn from the Australian Music Examinations Board violin syllabus, spanning salon pieces, spirituals and early Mozart.