Frank Bridge

[5][6] According to Benjamin Britten, Bridge had strong pacifist convictions, and he was deeply disturbed by the First World War,[7] although the extent of his pacifism was questioned in the 2010s.

However, Bridge was not widely active as a teacher of composition, and his teaching style was unconventional—he appears to have focused on aesthetic issues, idiomatic writing, and clarity, rather than exhaustive technical training.

[14] The works completed in the following years suggest a search for a more mature and expressive idiom, culminating in the tumultuous First String Quartet and a series of Phantasies for chamber ensembles.

[15] In the period leading up to the First World War Bridge demonstrates an interest in more modernist tendencies, most notably in Dance Poem of 1913, which suggests the influence of Stravinsky and Debussy.

[17] Several of the resulting works have some expressive connections with the First World War, which appears to have influenced the mood of the Piano Sonata (1921–24, dedicated to his friend Ernest Farrar, killed in 1918) and certainly Oration (1929–30).

This language is developed and used more effectively in the Third String Quartet, which sparked a series of major orchestral and chamber works, several of which rank among Bridge's greatest.