Frank Bridge

Frank Bridge's rhapsody Enter Spring demonstrates like his contemporaries Respighi and Szymanowski to be a master of sensuous chromaticism. It was received enthusiastically and provided welcome relief from the greater harmonic astringence of those before him. Study Score

'Isabella' is Bridge's second symphonic poem and was completed on January 1907 and was the first orchestral work he chose to acknowledge. It is the only one of Bridge's orchestral work to follow a detailed narrative. It is based on Keats' 'Isabella or the The Pot of Basil' a poetic version of Boccasccio's gruesome Florentine tale.

'The individual emotional quality and organic structure of Oration place it high in Bridge’s output and indeed in British music of the first half of this century. . .a profound work. . .'Music and Letters (Trevor Bray) April 1981