Frank Bridge's Two Poems are based on the now largely forgotten writings of Richard Jefferies. He essayed on life in the English countryside. The first of the two poems is scored for a small orchestra and has the following written on the manuscript from The Open Air, a book written in 1885, ‘Those thoughts and feelings which are not sharply defined, but have a haze of distance and beauty about them, are always dearest.
The second poem is in fact a little scherzo. Unlike the first, it has parts for brass and percussion. It differs, too in the fact that this poem is actually harmonically obvious and the formal structure is much more up front. It is more extrovert in its tone. Bridge has applied Jeffries words from The Story of my Heart to the score, “How beautiful a delight to make the world joyous! The song should never be silent, the dance never still, the laugh should sound like water which runs for ever.”
BRITISH CLASSICAL MUSIC Blog, Land of Lost Content
Popular Posts
-
William Boyce (baptised 11 September 1711 – d. 7 February 1779) was an English composer and organist. Boyce is known for his set of eight...
-
The Waltz in D-flat major, Op. 64, No. 1, Valse du petit chien, popularly known as the Minute Waltz, is a piano waltz composed by Frédéric...
-
Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102, by Dmitri Shostakovich was composed in 1957 for his son Maxim's 19th birthday. Maxim pr...
-
William Baines (26 March 1899 - 6 November 1922) was an English pianist and composer. He wrote more than 150 works for solo piano and ...
-
Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov (Russian: Михаи́л Миха́йлович Ипполи́тов-Ива́нов; 19 November [O.S. 7 November] 1859 – 28 January ...
-
William Alwyn CBE, born William Alwyn Smith (7 November 1905 – 11 September 1985), was an English composer, conductor, and music teacher...
-
Irish composer John Field was born in 1782 and died in 1837. He was the grandson of an Irish organist and the son of a violinist. His piano...
-
Brahms, Johaness SelectedWorks Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897), was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musi...
-
William Alwyn CBE, born William Alwyn Smith (7 November 1905 – 11 September 1985), was an English composer, conductor, and music teache...
-
The Symphony No. 7 in A-flat major by Arnold Bax was completed in 1939 and dedicated to "The People of America". The work receiv...