The
last original solo piano piece that Frank Bridge wrote [1] is usually regarded
as his ‘harmonically most advanced piano work.’ This short piece, lasting about
three minutes, is certainly one of the hardest of composer’s works to come to
terms with.
Gargoyle was composed in
at Friston, Sussex during July 1928. It was given the title provisionally: the manuscript
has a question mark against the name. It was rejected by his publisher Boosey
and Hawkes: ‘the advanced bitonal procedures being [apparently] an uneconomic
proposition’. It was returned to the composer and placed in an envelope: it lay
unheard until 1975, when the pianist Isobel Woods performed it on 21 December
1975 at a Glasgow University Annual Conference of Research Students. It was
given its first concert performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall by Richard
Rodney Bennett on 31 January 1977. The
score was edited by Paul Hindmarsh and duly issued by Thames Publishing the
same year.
It
is perhaps easiest to follow Jed Adie Galant (The Solo Piano of Frank Bridge,
1987, Thesis) and regard ‘Gargoyle’ as being ‘essentially a bitonal or perhaps
even atonal, two-part invention in ternary form. Bitonal typically means music written in two
keys at once, played simultaneously. Ternary form usually means and ABA
structure. However in the present case the form is not obvious to the causal
listener. Finally, an invention is a two
or three-part work for keyboard that is designed for technical proficiency
rather than public performance. The most famous examples are Johann Sebastian
Bach’s Two and Three Part Inventions and Sinfonias BWV 772–801.
Calum
MacDonald in the liner notes for Peter Jacob’s recording of ‘Gargoyle’ suggests
that the music is an ‘astonishing, eldritch, (weird, uncanny) [and]
sardonically witty piece’. He notes the
‘spiky, angular melodic material, bitonal harmonies, frequent biting dissonance
and stark, uncompromising textures’. He concludes by suggesting that this is ‘...a
brilliantly vivid impression of some scuttling, sarcastic, impish being.’
According to Anthony
Goldstone in the programme notes for his recording of the work, ‘Bridge's
transformed musical language was eminently suited to suggest a grotesque,
grimacing figure, and an alarming, ironic mood is instantly set. Jagged motifs,
fanfares and a violent 'curse' give way to a pitiful central song; after a
modified reprise the coda quotes a sardonic version of the song and a final
violent outburst melts into a Scriabinesque haze.’
Yet in
spite of the bitonal procedures, its largely atonal mood and the
impressionistic feel, there is certain intangible something to ‘Gargoyle’ that
makes this piece equally a part of Bridge’s canon of piano music as the salon
pieces of the Edwardian years.
Frank
Bridge’s ‘Gargoyle’ is currently available on three recording, although not all
of them may be easily obtainable:-
Frank
Bridge Piano Music Vol.III, Mark Bebbington SOMM CD0107
Frank
Bridge Complete Music for Piano Volume 1, Peter Jacobs CONTINUUM CCD 016
Britten
Resonances, Anthony Goldstone DIVERSIONS 24118
For
immediate hearing there is a YouTube file which also
displays the score.
Notes
[1]
One further ‘original’ piano piece did appear from Frank Bridge’s pen –
Todessehnsucht (Come Sweet Death) was an arrangement of a piece by J.S. Bach
for A Bach Book for Harriet Cohen published in 1931 and given its first
performance by the dedicatee on 17 October 1932 at he Queen’s Hall.
Thanks
to Britain Express for web-photo
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