This disc has five pieces by English composer Frank Bridge -- three of them early, two of them late, three of them late Romantic -- early Impressionist, two of them mordant Modernist and proudly Internationalist, none of them popular and all of them rarely recorded, except, of course, by English labels. That last bit doesn't matter in the least. This is unquestionably great music: brilliantly conceived, strongly executed, and powerfully individualistic. Performed with polish, passion, and deep dedication by
Nicholas Braithwaite and the
London Philharmonic Orchestra, the early works here -- the Dance Rhapsody from 1908, the Dance Poem from 1913, and the Two Poems ("The Open Air" and "The Story of my Heart") from 1960 -- are lush but lucid, warm but cool, and evocative but edgy, while the two late works -- the Overture "Rebus" from 1940 and the Allegro Moderato for string orchestra from 1941, the year of Bridge's death -- are lucid but austere, cool but hot, and edgy but lyrical. Superbly recorded in clear, bright, direct, and honest sound by Lyrita in 1979, this disc belongs in every collection of the English modernists --
Vaughan Williams, Holst,
Walton,
Tippett, and, of course,
Britten, Bridge's most famous pupil.