In the Musical America (17 November 1923), the Irish-born critic P.J. Nolan who worked in America between 1921 and1924 recorded a remarkable interview with the English composer Frank Bridge (1879-1941), who was on a three month visit to the United States. The article opens with a brief overview of the composer at this time. I have included a few brief notes.
In overview, the essay presented
under the striking headline “Frank Bridge, Distinguished English Composer,
Describes Our Educational Movements as Wonderful - Is Greatly Impressed by
Leading Orchestras Discusses Work of British Contemporaries Must Wait Ten Years
for Accurate Appraisal.”
FRANK BRIDGE, now on his first
visit to America, [1] disavows any narrow ambitions of nationalism on the part
of contemporary British composers, among whom he occupies a leading place. This
activity in British music, he says, is not collective. Each man is engaged
independently of the others in developing his own lines of thought. The trouble
in regard to the modernists is not with the leaders, who know what they want to
say, but with their imitators. The self-criticism to which the true artist
subjects himself will prevent him from foisting an ill-prepared work upon the
public. Mr. Bridge, who is widely known not only as composer but as conductor,
was born in Brighton, England, forty-four years ago, and studied with Stanford
at the Royal College of Music. He was a viola player in the Joachim Quartet.
His first important orchestral composition, “Isabella,” was produced at the
Queen’s Hall Promenade Concerts in London in 1907.
Animated by high ideals, the
music of Frank Bridge, the distinguished British composer now visiting the
United States, is, in its refinement and cultured taste, no less than in its
broad outlook, a reflection of the nature of the man himself. Talking to Mr. Bridge,
one derives a conviction that the interests of music are invulnerably safe in
his keeping, and that he is actuated above all by the desire to maintain the
traditions of art secure from unworthy influences. “The true artist,” he says,
“writes to express his own honest views, not to please the public.” In this
spirit, then, he gazes out over the whole field of musical endeavour, and finds
good in every phase of activity, however varied, whether conservative or
radical, if it be sincere.
Occupying a foremost position in
the chamber music developments of late years, Mr. Bridge, famous for many
picturesque and graceful scores in this form, is one of the composers who have
brought Great Britain again into prominence as a musical nation. Yet he is
prompt to disavow any narrow ambitions of nationalism in this movement, for
art, he agrees, cannot be limited by territorial boundaries. He will not even
speak of the new British activity in composition as a Renaissance. [2] “It is
not a collective effort,” he reminds us. “The half dozen or more composers who
are engaged in it are working independently of each other, looking down
separate roads, so to speak, and recording their impressions of what they see.
It so happens that these men have begun to work at about the same time. It is
only within the past ten years that their work has definitely attracted
attention, and another ten years must elapse before we shall be able properly
to appraise its value.”
This is Mr. Bridge’s first visit
to America, and he is tremendously impressed by what he has seen of the
widespread zeal in the cause of music in the United States. “You are wonderful
here!” he exclaimed, “with your large orchestras in all the important cities, [3]
and, above all, in the organizations connected with them for the education of
young people. Children’s concerts are the rule, I am told, and I believe that
you actually have leaders of the various sections of the orchestras lecturing
in the schools, explaining the instruments, and the music in which they are
used. Wonderful!” he repeated, when assured that this is the case. “All this
must tell immensely for the benefit of music. It must make for ideal audiences
in a few years.”
Reverting to the British
composers, he extolled their achievements - but his praise was all for others.
He is too modest to speak of his own work, but the world has done that for him,
anyway, in the enthusiasm with which it has acclaimed his music. “They are
doing fine work - Vaughan Williams, [Gustav] Holst, John Ireland, Arnold Bax,
Eugene Goossens, and the others, and they have created a keen interest, until
the general music public of Great Britain has come to understand and appreciate
the fact that a few men in their country are able to produce music, and are, in
fact, producing music. “I do not mean to say that the British people were
unmusical, but the fact was that the creative faculty was dormant. [4] These
men have been working for a long time, but it is only within the past ten years
that their achievements have become generally known, and in another ten years,
when a great deal of the music which is being written in our day will have
disappeared, and the best will have remained, it will be possible to realize
more accurately the value of what they have done.”
Mr. Bridge dissents from the
proposition that folk songs will prove the basis of a national music. [5] “Many
people, it is true, think they will; but on the other hand, there are a great
many other people, of whom I am one,” he affirmed, ‘‘who do not think so. “You
really cannot speak of nationality in music since art is world-wide. If there
is to be any expression of national spirit, it must be the expression of the
composer’s own thoughts and feelings, and must come from the promptings of his
own inspiration; he cannot seek it, and any effort on his part to aim at it as
a national expression must end in failure. This is precisely where, to my mind,
those who are interested in folk-music are making a mistake in seeking to force
that which should be spontaneous.” “All activity is healthy, if it
is sincere; but any new work must retain its solid foundation in art, if it is
to live,” was his dictum, when asked for his views on the revolutionary
tendencies in modern music.
And this summing-up is
particularly interesting from the fact that, while Mr. Bridge is fully prepared
to listen to all that the modern writers have to say, he has consistently
allied this conciliatory attitude with an unwavering respect for established standards.
Therefore, he does not by any means agree with the revolutionaries who contend
that we ought to break completely with the past.
“After all,” said he, “our store
of music of the present day has been built up steadily through the centuries,
just as our great fabric of law has been, and our store of medical knowledge - by
patient experiment after experiment, not in public, but in the work shop. That
is the place where new theories must be subjected to rigid and complete tests
before they are given to the world. Just as the chemist conducts his research
in his laboratory, the composer makes his experiments, but he must make them in
his workshop, too, not in the concert-room. And remember, the chemist,
searching for some new fact in medical science, absolutely refuses to publish
his research to the world until his discovery has been established beyond
question. “Debussy made his experiments and proved to be really a first-rate
artist in these experiments. The trouble is not with Debussy, or Stravinsky, or
Scriabin, who knew what they wanted to say, and had a clear plan in mind before
they began to compose any work. The trouble is with their imitators, who do not
know what they want to say. A new work is the reflection of the composer’s
outlook upon life. He seeks truth, and when he presents his finished work to
the public, he presents the solution of a problem.”
“The self-criticism to which the artist subjects himself will prevent him from foisting an ill-prepared work upon the public. The true artist may be trusted to take that care, and the greater the artist he is, the greater the care he takes. After that, the truth of his message must make itself known. If he is sincere, then all is well. It is the sincerity of his work which is the real test.”
Musical America (17 November 1923 p.3 & 32).
Notes: [1] On 8 December 1923, Frank and Ethel Bridge returned to Southampton aboard the White Star liner RMS Olympic. Earlier that year, on 22 August, Bridge had departed for the United States on the company’s majestic flagship, the RMS Majestic.
[2] The British or English
Musical Renaissance is a fraught topic. Often seen as beginning in the 1880s it
alludes to the surge of creative activity, and stylistic endeavours of
composers such as Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford, and
Alexander Mackenzie who were regarded by some as being in the vanguard of a
newly revitalised national tradition, one that sought to “rival the Germans.”
British music re‑emerged on the European stage with symphonies, choral works,
and operas that asserted a distinctive cultural voice. This Renaissance
continued well into to the 20th century, especially as composers
began incorporating English folk song and Tudor church music influences. It
certainly includes Frank Bridge as one of the participants.
[3] In 1923, the leading American
orchestras were the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Cleveland
Orchestra, the five ensembles that would later be recognised collectively as
the nation’s “Big Five”. Alongside them stood several other significant forces
in the country’s musical life: the San Francisco Symphony, the St. Louis
Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (later the Minnesota
Orchestra), and the young but ambitious Los Angeles Philharmonic. Together,
these orchestras formed the backbone of America’s symphonic culture in the
early twentieth century.
[4] As scholarship has explored
further back into the Victorian era, before Parry, Stanford and Mackenzie,
other gems have been discovered. These include William Sterndale Bennett,
Arthur Sullivan, George Macfarren and Alice Mary Smith.
[5] Frank Bridge himself relied
on folk tunes for a few works, such as Sally in Our Alley, Sir Roger
de Coverley, the Londonerry Ait and Cherry Ripe.
With thanks to Paul Hindmarsh for permission to use the photograph of Frank and Ethel Bridge (centre of picture) about the RMS Majestic.
To be concluded…
