(From Birmingham)
The Midland String Orchestra
Conducted by Frank Cantell
Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson (Two Pianofortes)
The Opera to which this is the Overture enjoys the distinction, probably unique, of having been completely encored on its first performance. Its composer, one of the most famous of the Italian school, was, at the time of its composition, Court musician to the Emperor Leopold III of Austria, and it was His Majesty himself who enjoyed the work so much as to insist on its complete repetition immediately after it had been sung and played for the first time.
Born at Brighton in 1879, Frank Bridge studied violin and composition at the Royal College, winning a scholarship there at the age of twenty, and continuing his studies for four years under the late Sir Charles Stanford. He quickly achieved distinction as a viola player, and had the rare honour of taking part at one time in the old Joachim Quartet as deputy for Professor Wirth. Thoroughly at home in chamber music, whether as performer or composer, he is regarded as among those who have done much to raise the position of present-day British music to the place of honour which it holds; he is known, too, as the composer of many fine songs.
His orchestral work leans to the pictorial and descriptive side of music, and most of his orchestral pieces have names which indicate the impression they would convey. His Suite for orchestra, 'The Sea,' for instance, when selected by the Carnegie adjudicators for publication under their scheme, was spoken of as 'a striking piece of tone-painting.'
This Suite, although it has no such descriptive title, has much of the same picturesqueness and is laid out to make the very most of the best qualities of the orchestra it employs.
