Bridge Dance Rhapsody, Dance Poem, 'Rebus'

"One of the jewels in Lyrita's crown, this collection of Bridge's orchestral music warrants the highest plaudits...Rebus was Bridge's last work for full orchestra. It's a magnificent signing-off : witty and garrulous, with a heightened sense of danger and a 'big' tune that haunts the memory; Braithwaite's recording is the ideal introduction to this work. This is a notable issue." Colin Anderson, International Record Review "It would be hard to imagine more responsive and idiomatic orchestral playing than the LPO's under Braithwaite or more sumptuous and vivid analogue sound." PENGUIN GUIDE *** PENGUIN GUIDE 2010

"The Two Poems are from the depths of the Great War. While both pieces carry pastoral-spiritual superscriptions from Richard Jefferies one can sense the dark tinge in the horizon’s clouds. This is not an uncomplicated untroubled ecstatic mirage although there are some gloriously ecstatic moments which hark back to Summer. One thinks of warm evocations of the countryside such as Suk’s Summer and Schoeck’s Sommernacht in the case of The Open Air but an elfin irrepressible energy bristles in the unstoppable scherzo that is The Story of My Heart – once recorded by the composer. This might almost be a harbinger of the great upward swing of Enter Spring. It is a delightful piece complete with its echoes of Chabrier (España), Ravel and de Falla (El Amor Brujo). Not to be missed.

Now facing immense competition from Richard Hickox’s six volume Chandos Bridge series this disc still makes a signally attractive coupling. It presents the early Tchaikovskian-sumptuous Bridge (the two Dance works), the transitional Bridge (Two Poems) and the subtle and finely dissonant post-Great War Bridge (Rebus)." Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International