Love went a-riding

Mary Coleridge’s description of Christ “riding over the earth” on a winged horse is transformed in Frank Bridge’s best-known song (1914) into a breathless, ecstatic vision. “Allegro energico”, the composer marks his score, and the pace never slackens as piano (or orchestra) and voice gallop forwards, hoofbeats thudding through the triple-time accompaniment. Pawing the ground in a series of splashy chromatic chords, the piano launches the song into motion, propelling the music in insistent dotted rhythms. The voice, seemingly too eager to wait, enters halfway through a bar—catching the listener unawares, establishing a sense that we’re trailing behind, always trying to catch up. Demanding writing, full of leaps for the voice and surging activity for the piano, gives the song its athletic muscularity. While there’s some delicate word-painting—a frozen river suddenly flowers in trickling semiquavers, wings beat powerfully in quivering dotted rhythms—this is a single musical gesture from start to finish.