Frank Bridge frequently gets introduced as Britten’s teacher. This has gone on for too long: Bridge was an important British composer in his own right, as these recordings, and many more, now demonstrate (see my feature on Gramophone’s website: gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/frank-bridge-–-the-unsung-british-modernist). Bridge began within the inherited Romantic tradition well before the First World War but then, under the impact of the war, which he detested, his style toughened and became more dissonant, disconcerting people in the 1920s. The Phantasy Piano Quartet is a mellifluous example of the pre-war style; the Cello Sonata, Bridge’s most popular chamber work, came during the war; and by 1932, in the Violin Sonata, the later style was fully established. The dominant mood of the earlier works is an elegiac nostalgia close to some of Elgar – during the war it became anger. Throughout, there’s an identifiable melodic flow, initially comparable to Fauré, and then Bridge’s characteristic harmonic idiom developed from the techniques of Scriabin and early Berg. I’ve admired Lynex and Wells in their complete Bridge cello-and-piano works (Somm, 11/01) and now Paul Watkins delivers lovely, fluent melodic lines in the Cello Sonata. Bridge’s arrangements are attractive but the rarity here is the Violin Sonata, commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who did so much to support Bridge when he was cruelly neglected at home. Its stop-start continuity is not easy to handle but it comes across with impassioned climaxes from Marianne Thorsen and Ian Brown. There are authoritative notes from Paul Hindmarsh, and the Hyperion recorded quality is a dream.