Notes for: July 26, 2005
Frank Bridge was better known during his lifetime as a chamber-music musician and conductor than as a composer. Born and trained in Britain, he spent his professional life mainly in London, and in the mid-1920s moved to the South Downs in southeastern England, where he died in relative obscurity. A generation after his death, his importance as a composer came to be recognized, thanks to the efforts of his student Benjamin Britten, who sponsored performances of Bridge’s music at Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival.
In 1908, Bridge made this arrangement of the familiar Londonderry Air under the title An Irish Melody. While the song is known today as “Danny Boy,” it goes back at least to the early 19th century, and has been known variously as “Would God I Were the Tender Apple Blossom,” “Farewell to Cucullain” and the hymn “O Strength and Stay.” In Bridge’s inventive arrangement, he fragments the melody and then develops the fragments before revealing the entire melody at the end.