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The third volume in Mark Bebbington’s recording of the complete piano music of Frank Bridge includes his first acknowledged piano piece Berceuse of 1901 and his last, Gargoyle of 1928. This series has been well received; “Bebbington reveals the profound and poetic in Bridge. These are benchmark performances.” BBC Music Magazine
Three Poems: Nr. 1: Sunset
Three Poems: Nr. 2: Solitude
Three Poems: Nr. 3: Ecstasy
Hidden Fires
Arabesque
Three Pieces: Nr. 1: Moderato
Three Pieces: Nr. 2: Pensée Fugitive
Three Pieces: Nr. 3: Scherzettino
Miniature Pastorals: Nr. 1: Andante Molto Tranquillo
Miniature Pastorals: Nr. 2: Allegro Con Moto
Miniature Pastorals: Nr. 3: Allegro Vivace
Three Improvisations: Nr. 1: At Dawn
Three Improvisations: Nr. 2: A Vig
Three Improvisations: Nr. 3: A Revel
Winter Pastoral
Three Lyrics: Nr. 1: Heart's Ease
Three Lyrics: Nr. 2: Dainty Rogue
Three Lyrics: Nr. 3: The Hedgerow
A Dedication
Berceuse
Canzonetta
Gargoyle
August 2011
*****
“Bebbington brings out the opalescent harmonies and wayward phrases of these pieces to perfection, and deftly charaterises the various songsters in The Hedgerow. Perhaps the expressive high-points of the disc are the desolate Winter Pastoral of 1925 and the enigmatic A Dedication of the following year...performed here with rapt attentiveness and beauty of tone that reveals the expressive impact of these works.”
October 2011
“Best of all are the early works: Berceuse (1901), Bridge's first piano miniature, and Thre Pieces (1901-02), have an immediate appeal to which Bebbington appends affection and the same lustrous tone-colouring common to all 22 separate titles...Those with a penchant for the piano's left-hand-alone repertoire will be drawn to Three Improvisations”
16th June 2011
“even within such a collection of miniatures and occasional pieces, which ranges right across Bridge's composing career, there is still enough to show what a remarkable and, in the context of early-20th-century British music, unique figure he was...Bebbington plays [Gargoyle] and other radical pieces, such as the mysterious A Dedication, with the same poise and clarity he brings to the more obviously Edwardian salon music here.”
22nd September 2011
****
“These piano pieces show an astonishing range of influences, from Chopin to expressionist Schoenberg to Debussy to English pastoralism, sometimes within the space of one piece. To make it all cohere requires a firm structural grasp, which Bebbington certainly has, but he catches the sensuousness of the music too.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
Three Poems: Nr. 1: Sunset
