| Biography | Ernest Leslie (but usually known as Leslie) Bridgewater was born in the West Midlands and educated at the Birmingham School of Music and later in life he was Music Adviser to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon (1948-59), in which capacity he composed incidental music to at least twenty of Shakespeares plays, though a few were for the London stage. Much of his other incidental music was for old plays, Restoration and Victorian, though one more modern play, Dodie Smiths "Dear Octopus", popular as I remember during the 1940s, drew from his pen a lively overture. Many of his later essays in the incidental music genre were for broadcast transmissions; William Congreves "Love for Love", from which three songs (A Nymph and a Swan, Charmion and Cynthia) were published; George Farquhars "The Beaux Stratagem" (1950), which also yielded three songs (Highwaymans Song, O Good Ale and Tis True I Never Was in Love); Sir John Vanbrughs "The Relpase" for which, once again, he wrote three songs (A Heart and a Head, The Rakes Repentance and Lord Foppingtons Ditty), plus the orchestral movements Foppington Gavotte, Hoyden Theme and a final Contredance, and Molieres "Tartuffe", for which he provided a score comprising arrangements from Molieres contemporaries Lully and Rameau.
After the Second War Bridgewater penned incidental scores for a number of films, including "Against the Wind" (1947) and, based on a railway disaster, "Train of Events" (1949). However it was the BBC, on whose music staff he worked for many years, which inspired his most notable work. He conducted the BBC Salon Orchestra 1939-42 and formed the Leslie Bridgewater Quintet (piano, played by him, and strings). Much Quintet repertoire was arranged by him from 18th Century music, most of it then rarely heard: Arne, Mozarts opera singing friend Michael Kelly, Domenico Scarlatti, Robert Jones, Veracini and Henry Eccles. One fascinating item was a Hindoo Lullaby derived from an 18th Century collection of Hindoo melodies and published by him in a version for violin and piano. Maybe the revival work he and others like Alfred Reynolds did help to bring about the baroque revival of the 1950s and afterwards.
His most important compositions were a String Quartet and a Piano Concerto premiered on the radio in February 1947 and recorded by Paxton on 78s (is there any chance of a reissue?) Apart from those he produced a large number of light concert suites and single movement intermezzi and genre pieces for small orchestra, for which the BBCs appetite then seemed insatiable (how different it is now, alas). His music never commanded quite the popularity of Coates or Haydn Wood but it was, I recall, regularly performed. His suites included Rustic Suite (Country Dance, Lovers Lane and, perhaps recalling his Midlands youth, Bromsgrove Fair) and, from 1955, Ballet in Progress (Danse de le Poupee, The Enchanted Ballroom, Polka Grotesque). Single movements included a caprice for solo violin and small orchestra entitled Prunella, Alla Toceata for strings or violin and piano, the au de ballet Harlequin, the march grotesque Shadows, the intermezzo Spirit of Youth, Serenata Amorosa, Loves Awakening, The Nightingale and Interlude for Sentiment. These were for orchestra but several were published in piano arrangements. |