Bridge: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 3

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 Faur©; 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 Bart³k; 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€.