The Music of Frank Bridge: 1) The Early Years

Abstract

The neglect of the music of Frank Bridge by performers and writers since his untimely death in 1941 has delayed a full examination of one of the most fascinating developments of style and personality in English 20th-century music. It is the record of an artist's slow recognition of his deepest self, after a leisurely decade of reasoned creative work in which he had yet to explore the darkest recesses of his subconscious. Such a source of inspiration and revelation does not appear to have been necessary for the realization of the rational, even sceptical creative urge of his early years: it was only after a long period of inward development that his rich and complex character balanced that sort of neat orderliness with a dark irrational fantasy. Possibly the experience of the war marshalled the hidden forces in Bridge's nature, and forced him to come to terms with them. Even so, his enquiring mind, always alert to the development of style, might well have led him on to self-discovery by means of linguistic experiment. Certainly the music prior to his unexpectedly radical development in the 1920's is of increasing depth and penetration.