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Frank Bridge

Writer's picture: Heather WadeHeather Wade


Frank Bridge might be the name of this cool bridge. If not, maybe I will name it that, unofficially, I guess, since I don't actually know anything about this bridge. Maybe it already has a cooler name. But I CAN tell you a bit about Frank Bridge the English composer...


Bridge was born (in 1879), and spent his childhood years, in Brighton. Brighton is a holiday town, a little like many towns on Cape Cod in a way, a place where people go to spend vacation time on the beach. When I was small, we went for a holiday there, and I remember a few things...


  1. I had an ice cream from an ice cream truck.

  2. I found the only sand dollar I have ever found. It was about the size of a penny. I was completely thrilled, and ran to show it to my Nanna. My dad said, "Careful, Mum, it's very fragile" at the exact moment that she crushed it to dust between her fingers. And then we laughed a lot.

  3. I had some Brighton Rock....

which is candy that has the words ALL THE WAY THROUGH. It tasted like sugar and nothing else, and it looked SUPER COOL.


ANYWAY...Frank Bridge was from Brighton, and he was a violist as well as a composer, so he wrote a lot of string music. He was influenced in part by the French Impressionists, and his music is kind of Romantic/Impressionist/later a bit atonal. He was Benjamin Britten's teacher, and when Britten moved to the US in 1939, Bridge gave him his viola to take with him. (I am not sure why. Was he done playing viola???) Anyway, Bridge died in 1941, so I guess he would only have been viola-less for 2 years. Perhaps they were 2 peaceful, viola free years....


In July at the Meetinghouse Chamber Music Festival I will be playing Bridge's Phantasy for piano, violin, viola and cello with the series director and pianist Donald Enos, and my colleagues Bo Ericsson and Laura Manko Sahin. Bridge wrote quite a phew pieces that he called "phantasy". He must have really thought that spelling was phantastic! I am looking forward to playing it with my phriends, we get together every year for this series and always have lots of phun. I hope you can make it! Phanks for reading!


Tuesday, July 5, 7:30

Heather Goodchild Wade, violin; Laura Manko Sahin, viola; Bo Ericsson, cello Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Piano Quartet in E Flat, K. 493 Frank Bridge – Phantasy for violin, viola, cello and piano Robert Schumann – Piano Quartet in E Flat, Op. 47

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