| Review by wehecht April 14, 2006 (3 of 3 found this review helpful)
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| For many years Frank Bridge was known primarily as the teacher of Benjamin Britten but during the LP era the Lyrita label began the process of restoring his reputation as a composer, a process that Chandos is furthering in its present series of which this is volume 3 (of at least 4) and the only one available in sacd. It is commonly said of Bridge that like many composers of his generation his work changed drastically after WWI, though Paul Hindmarsh resists this easy generalization in his excellent booklet notes. Nonetheless it is true that Bridge lost several musical friends to the war (one thinks particularly of George Butterworth, whose small but beautiful output also received the Lyrita treatment and begs for Chandos to take it up as well), and that his post-war work grew increasingly chromatic. Its emotional cast also changed, from the typically sunny and cheerful early works to the darker and tense later ones. The change is made easily apparent on this disc in the contrast between the roughly 11 minute tone poem "Summer" composed in 1914, and the similar length impression for small orchestra "There is a Willow Grows aslant a Brook" of 1927. "There is a Willow..." is a wonderful small work, stunning in it's evocation of the drowning of Ophelia, but not, on that account, an altogether easy listen. I would be remiss not to mention the biggest work on the disc, the Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra entitled "Phantasm" a 24 minute piano concerto in all but name, though the enigmatic tone of the work is far from that of the typical romantic vehicle for a virtuoso soloist. The always reliable and insightful Howard Shelley is the soloist in "Phantasm", and he together with conductor Richard Hickox and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales obviously believe in Bridge's music and do a wonderful job with it. The recording (PCM based)is one of Chandos' best, displaying the music in beautiful colors, with an appropriate sense of scale and balance, all bound up in a believable acoustic.
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