Bridge & Scott: Piano Quintets

Frank Bridge is today recognised as one of the most gifted figures in British musical life before World War I. His Piano Quintet, a work of personal significance prompted by the absence of his fiancée, is notable for its passionate, lyrical and forceful language, the Rachmaninov-like technical demands of the piano part calling for a virtuoso pianist. Debussy described Cyril Scott’s exotic harmonic language as “an intoxication for the ear”, and the First Piano Quintet is a multifaceted work which mirrors Scott’s flamboyant public persona while maintaining a genuinely poetic inner beauty.