Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Musical Examples
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Background, Royal College of Music and Early Works
- Chapter 2 First Maturity
- Chapter 3 Transitional Period
- Chapter 4 Bridge’s Post-Tonal Idiom: Piano Sonata and Third String Quartet
- Interlude Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
- Chapter 5 Progressive Works, 1927–1932
- Interlude Benjamin Britten
- Chapter 6 Last Years
- List of Works
- Bibliography
- Index
Interlude - Benjamin Britten
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 June 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Musical Examples
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Background, Royal College of Music and Early Works
- Chapter 2 First Maturity
- Chapter 3 Transitional Period
- Chapter 4 Bridge’s Post-Tonal Idiom: Piano Sonata and Third String Quartet
- Interlude Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
- Chapter 5 Progressive Works, 1927–1932
- Interlude Benjamin Britten
- Chapter 6 Last Years
- List of Works
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
IT was a performance of The Sea at the 1924 Norwich Triennial Festival that first earned Bridge the admiration of the young Benjamin Britten. The impression made by that early work was reinforced by the experience, three years later, of Enter Spring. Bridge conducted the premiere, staying with his old friend Audrey Alston (née ffolkes), a Royal College of Music contemporary and Britten's viola teacher. It was Alston who encouraged Bridge to meet the thirteen-year-old and consider taking him on as a pupil; Bridge's initial reluctance was mollified by a preliminary meeting and examination of Britten's compositions, and lessons began in early 1928. These were held during the school holidays, and Bridge's standards were exacting from the outset, as Britten recalled in 1963:
Even though I was barely in my teens, this was immensely serious and professional study; and the lessons were mammoth. I remember one that started at half past 10, and at tea-time Mrs Bridge came in and said, ‘Really, you must give the boy a break.’ Often I used to end these marathons in tears; not that he was beastly to me, but the concentrated strain was too much for me … [His] strictness was the product of nothing but professionalism. Bridge insisted on the absolutely clear relationship of what was in my mind to what was on the paper … His loathing of all sloppiness and amateurishness set me standards to aim for that I’ve never forgotten.
This indicates Bridge's high regard for his pupil's talents and abilities, and the complete seriousness with which he treated his role in developing them. His inability to take a gentler approach also recalls his own upbringing and musical training. Within a year of having first made contact with Bridge, Britten completed the astounding Quatre Chansons Françaises, which demonstrate his advanced stylistic proclivities and technical refinement even at this early stage.
It is clear that the lessons did not follow the sort of conventional technical model that one might expect. Certainly, Bridge encouraged Britten to work on aspects of his technique, but he did not simply set compositional exercises; Britten did not, for instance, study strict counterpoint with Bridge, and it is interesting to note that, despite his technical facility, he found Palestrinian counterpoint challenging when studying with John Ireland. Rather, both approached the sessions as composers, and technical refinement was expected as a matter of course.
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- Information
- The Music of Frank Bridge , pp. 193 - 198Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015