|
BRIDGE, Frank (1879–1941)
Orchestral Works (complete recording)
BBC Nat. O of Wales, Hickox:
Vol. 1: Enter Spring; Isabella; Mid of the Night; 2 Poems for Orchestra
Vol. 2: Dance Poem; Dance Rhapsody; 5 Entr’actes; Norse Legend; The Sea
Vol. 3: Coronation March; (i) Phantasm. Sir Roger de Coverley (A Christmas Dance); Summer; There is a Willow Grows aslant a Brook; Vignettes de danse
Vol. 4: Allegro moderato; Lament for String Orchestra; (i) Oration (Concerto elegiaco). Rebus – Overture for Orchestra; (ii) A Prayer (for chorus & orchestra)
Vol. 5: 2 Entr’actes; 2 Intermezzi from ‘Threads’; 2 Old English Songs; Sir Roger de Coverley (A Christmas Dance); Suite for Strings; Todessehnsucht; Valse Intermezzo à cordes (arr. Hindmarsh); (i) The Hag; 2 Songs of Robert Bridges
Vol. 6: Berceuse; Chant d’espérance; The Pagent of London; A Royal Night of Variety; Serenade; (i) Adoration; (ii) Berceuse; (i) Blow Out, You Bugles; (ii) Day After Day; (i) Love Went A-Riding; (ii) Mantle of Blue; Speak To Me; (i) Thy Hand In Mine; Where She Lies Asleep
Richard Hickox’s comprehensive survey of Frank Bridge’s orchestral music with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales is one of the highlights of the Chandos catalogue. Volume 1 begins with his fresh and bracing rhapsody, Enter Spring, dating from 1927, while his second tone-poem, Isabella (1907), brooding and haunting, fully captures Keats’s gruesome story which inspired this Lisztian tone-poem. In the longest work on this volume, Mid of the Night, Liszt is recalled again, and one has the feeling of a young composer (24) spreading his wings and exploring orchestral colour. The Two Poems for Orchestra (1915), the first chromatically sinuous and the second a lively orchestral dance, are also vividly scored.
Volume 2 includes Bridge’s most celebrated piece, the tone-poem, The Sea, and it here receives a superbly briny performance. The disc opens with an exceptionally lively Dance Rhapsody (1908), again brilliantly orchestrated. The light but very charming folk-tune-inspired 5 Entr’actes come from the music Bridge wrote for a play, The Two Hunchbacks while the more experimental Dance Poem, premièred in 1914, is harmonically and melodically more diffuse. This is followed by the short but beautiful Norse Legend, an evocative miniature tone-poem, originally written for violin and piano in 1905, but later (1938) orchestrated.
Volume 3 begins with the stirring Coronation March of 1911, which just misses having a truly memorable big tune. Summer (1914) evokes a summer’s day in the country while Phantasm finds Bridge at his most searching and exploratory. As Paul Hindmarsh writes in the sleevenotes, ‘it inhabits a spectral world of dreams and ghostly apparitions’. Howard Shelley is the responsive soloist. There is a Willow Grows aslant a Brook is hauntingly dark and bleak, as befits its Shakespearean inspiration: Gertrude’s Act IV speech in Hamlet, in which she describes the drowning of Ophelia. The Vignettes de danse are orchestrations of earlier piano pieces, as is the much more famous and hugely enjoyable Sir Roger de Coverley, which ends this disc in its full orchestral version.
Volume 4 contains perhaps Bridge’s finest orchestral work, the Oration for cello and orchestra. Alban Gerhardt’s performance can stand alongside the finest earlier accounts. Rarities on this disc include the Rebus Overture, the composer’s last completed work (1940), and, although the textures are sparer than in his earlier music, the scoring is characteristically original. The Allegro moderato (or Symphony) for String Orchestra, completed by Anthony Pople, shows Bridge at his most deeply eloquent, as does the poignant Lament (1915), written for a young friend who died with her family when the Lusitania was sunk. A Prayer, an anti-war work completed in orchestrated form in 1918, is Bridge’s only setting for chorus and orchestra. Deliberately written to be performed by amateur choral societies, its relatively simple style is direct and affecting. The performance and recording here – and throughout this CD – is excellent.
The highlight of Volume 5, the Suite for Strings (1909), is full of delightful pastoral writing and piquant colour. Of the Two Intermezzi from ‘Threads’, the second movement, a pastiche of a Viennese dance, is sparklingly toe-tapping. Both the Two Old English Songs, ‘Sally in Our Alley’ and ‘Cherry Ripe’, are imaginatively scored, with the former in lush harmonies and the latter turned into a virtuoso string tour de force for strings, where the tune only emerges from the hustle and bustle towards the close. Todessehnsucht is an arrangement of Bach (the funeral chorale, Komm, Süsser Tod) which is Stokowskian in its sumptuous grandeur. The nostalgic pair of Entr’actes are orchestrated piano works and evoke much warm nostalgia. The Valse Intermezzo à cordes is a stylish early student work, beautifully crafted and surprisingly memorable. Roderick Williams is the superb baritone in the lively setting of Robert Herrick’s poem, The Hag, and the Two Songs of Robert Bridges are no less colourfully evocative.
The final volume largely comprises Bridge’s orchestral songs, beginning with the stirring Blow Out, You Bugles, based on Rupert Brooke’s most famous war poem. The contrasting Berceuse is also memorable, with again Bridge’s orchestral colour very telling. Sarah Connolly sings it most beautifully too, as she does in all her items. Love Went A-Riding, with its galloping accompaniment, is very enjoyable, with the late Philip Langridge lustily vigorous. The orchestral items here include the colourful suite, The Pageant of London for wind orchestra, written for a pageant performed at the Crystal Palace in 1911. These are lively music vignettes of ‘Ye Olde England’ and they receive their première recording here in their original version. The Berceuse, Chant d’espérance and Serenade are all orchestral miniatures of much pastoral charm. The CD ends with the brief A Royal Night of Variety, written for the BBC in 1934, which starts robustly and ends unexpectedly quietly.
Throughout these six collections the BBC National Orchestra of Wales are on top form; they obviously enjoy the music. Hickox is persuasively idiomatic and spontaneous, and the Chandos recording is first class.
理查德·希科克斯与BBC威尔士国家乐团合作录制的弗兰克·布里奇管弦乐作品全集,是Chandos唱片目录中的瑰宝。第一卷以1927年创作的新鲜奔放狂想曲《春之降临》开篇,而第二首音诗《伊莎贝拉》(1907)则阴郁凄美,完美捕捉了济慈笔下这个激发李斯特式音诗创作的惊悚故事。本辑最长作品《子夜》再次令人联想到李斯特,能感受到时年24岁的年轻作曲家正舒展羽翼探索管弦乐色彩。为管弦乐队而作的两首诗(1915)中,第一首半音蜿蜒,第二首则是活泼的管弦舞曲,配器同样生动鲜明。
第二卷收录了布里奇最负盛名的音诗《大海》,此处演绎得极具咸涩海韵。唱片以异常活泼的《舞蹈狂想曲》(1908)开场,其管弦编排再次展现精妙才华。灵感源自民谣的五首轻松迷人的《幕间曲》出自戏剧《两个驼背》配乐,而更具实验性的《舞蹈诗》1914年首演时,在和声与旋律上都更为发散。随后是短小精美的《挪威传奇》,这首 evocative 的微型音诗原为1905年小提琴与钢琴创作,后于1938年改编为管弦乐。
第三卷以1911年振奋人心的《加冕进行曲》启幕,仅差一步便可成就真正难忘的雄浑旋律。《夏日》(1914)描绘乡间夏日景致,而《幻象》则展现布里奇最深沉的探索精神。正如保罗·辛德马什在唱片说明中所写:"它栖居于梦境与幽灵幻影的 spectral 世界"。钢琴家霍华德·雪莱的演绎极具默契。《溪畔柳》阴郁荒凉得令人 haunting,恰合其莎剧灵感——源自《哈姆雷特》第四幕中葛楚德描述奥菲莉亚溺亡的独白。《舞蹈小品》是早期钢琴曲的管弦改编,同卷终曲《罗杰·德·科弗利爵士》亦然,这个极负盛名的欢快曲目在此以完整管弦乐版呈现。
第四卷包含布里奇或许最杰出的管弦乐作品《大提琴与乐队挽歌》。阿尔班·格哈特的演绎可与历来最佳版本比肩。本辑珍品包括作曲家绝笔之作《谜语序曲》(1940),虽织体较早期作品简朴,配器仍独具匠心。由安东尼·波普尔续完的《弦乐队中速快板(或交响曲)》展现布里奇最深邃的雄辩,为"卢西塔尼亚号"沉船事件中罹难的年轻友人而作的《哀歌》(1915)同样如此。反战作品《祈祷》1918年完成管弦编配,是布里奇唯一为合唱与乐队创作的 setting。特意为业余合唱团演出谱写的相对简单风格直击人心。本CD全程的演绎与录音皆属上乘。
第五卷亮点《弦乐组曲》(1909)充满怡人田园笔触与辛辣色彩。《"线索"间奏曲二首》中,第二乐章对维也纳舞曲的戏仿令人不禁踏节。两首《古英语民歌》——《我们巷里的萨莉》与《樱桃熟了》——配器想象力丰富,前者和声丰沛,后者成为弦乐炫技杰作,曲调直至尾声才从纷扰中浮现。《死亡渴望》改编自巴赫葬礼众赞歌《来吧,甜蜜死亡》,其华丽壮美堪比斯托科夫斯基风格。怀旧风《幕间曲二首》由钢琴曲改编,唤起温暖乡愁。《弦乐间奏圆舞曲》是学生时代风格之作,结构精巧且出奇地 memorable。男中音罗德里克·威廉斯在赫里克诗歌《女巫》生动谱曲中表现绝佳,两首《罗伯特·布里奇斯诗歌谱曲》同样色彩斑斓。
终卷主要为布里奇艺术歌曲,以鲁珀特·布鲁克著名战争诗歌谱写的激昂曲《吹响吧,军号》开场。对比鲜明的《摇篮曲》同样 memorable,布里奇的管弦色彩再次彰显威力。女中音莎拉·康诺利所有曲目皆演绎绝美,包括伴奏奔腾的《爱驰骋》。已故男高音菲利普·兰德里奇在后者中活力四射。器乐作品包含1911年为水晶宫庆典创作的色彩缤纷的《伦敦盛会》管乐组曲,这些"古英格兰"音乐小品在此以原始版本迎来首录。《摇篮曲》《希望之歌》与《小夜曲》皆是田园魅力十足的管弦小品。唱片终曲《皇家综艺之夜》(1934年为BBC创作)开场雄浑,收尾却出奇静谧。
这六套合辑中,BBC威尔士国家乐团始终处于巅峰状态,显然乐在其中。希科克斯的指挥兼具说服力与 spontaneity,Chandos的录音品质一如既往地一流。
(源于DeepSeek翻译)
https://115cdn.com/s/swwbz5w3hq9?password=3377&#
Bridge, Frank - Complete Orchestral Works - Richard Nickox, BBC National Orchestra of Wales [Chandos 6CD]
|
|