Frederick Bridge
Sir John Frederick Bridge CVO (5 December 1844 – 18 March 1924) was an English organist, composer, teacher and writer.
For the English photographer, organist, singer and choirmaster, see Frederick Albert Bridge.
From a musical family, Bridge became a church organist before he was 20, and he achieved his ambition to become a cathedral organist by the age of 24, at Manchester Cathedral. After six years there, he was invited to become organist at Westminster Abbey, where he remained for the rest of his career. He instituted several changes to modernise and improve the music-making at the Abbey and organised the music for several state occasions, including two coronations.
As a teacher and lecturer, Bridge held posts at the Royal College of Music, Gresham College and the University of London. His students included the composers Arthur Benjamin and Noel Gay, the organists Edward Bairstow and Herbert Brewer, the conductor Landon Ronald and the early music pioneer Arnold Dolmetsch. His public lectures at Gresham College attracted large audiences, and they covered a wide range of subjects and musical periods.
For 25 years, Bridge was conductor of the Royal Choral Society, with whom he performed many new works, including some of his own compositions and works by the British composers Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Parry.
Works[edit]
Music[edit]
Bridge's larger-scale works include the choral pieces Mount Moriah (oratorio) (1874); Boadicea (cantata, G.E. Troutbeck, 1880); Callirhoë: a Legend of Calydon (cantata, W.B. Squire, 1888); He giveth his Beloved Sleep (meditation, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1890); The Repentance of Nineveh (oratorio, Joseph Bennett, 1890); The Inchape Rock (ballad, Robert Southey, 1891); The Cradle of Christ: Stabat mater speciosa (canticle, J.M. Neale, 1894); The Flag of England (ballad, Rudyard Kipling, 1899); The Forging of the Anchor (dramatic scene, S. Ferguson, 1901); The Lobster's Garden Party (cantata, S. Wensley, 1904); A Song of the English (ballad, Kipling, 1911); and Star of the East (Christmas fantasy, Lady Lindsay, 1922).[4]
Bridge also wrote and edited many carols, and was editor of the Westminster Abbey Hymn-Book and the Wesleyan Hymn-Book.[1] Among his shorter works are many songs, both comic and serious. The former were popular, and Bridge commented that he had written a good deal of serious music, but that nobody seemed to want to hear it.[3]
