What a good record this is, typical of Hyperion's enterprise and flair for selecting works that go well together. Not, perhaps, that too much flair was needed to see that these Bridge chamber works make a varied and rewarding cycle. The 'Phantasy' piano trio and quartet were products of W. W. Cobbett's munificence and his passion for a revival of the seventeenth-century fantasy form. Sometimes, perhaps, this imprisoned com posers in a form they might not otherwise have attempted, but it also freed their imaginations; and Cobbett's stipulation that works should be in one movement was very loosely observed, since what most composers wrote was a three- or four-movement piece played without a break, as Bridge did in the two examples here.
The C minor Trio, dating from 1907, is in Bridge's early romantic style, but this was always pruned of Baxian excesses. Its rhythmic vitality and energy set it apart from some of Bridge's contemporaries, while he could equal the best of them in writing a long and haunting melody. The quartet, in F sharp minor, dating from 1911, lasts less than 15 minutes but manages to be both expansive in gesture and concise in thematic material. Both works are expertly played.
But the disc's prime importance is the 1929 Trio, recorded only quite recently by the Borodin Trio for Chandos. There is little to choose between their interpretation and that of the Dartington Trio, while the playing of both groups is splendid, the Borodin perhaps a little richer in tone. However the Hyperion recording of piano tone, especially the high chords at the start of the work, is supenor. Chandos do tend to go in close for most of their chamber music recordings and I think the Hyperion perspective is preferable. As for the work itself, it is a masterpiece and one is ashamed to read of the hostility which greeted it 60 years ago. Much was then made of Schoenberg's influence, but to my ears it sounds nearer to French music. But who cares about 'influences' here? It is Bridge, unmistakably, and the best Bridge, too.'