Until recently, most music lovers knew of Frank Bridge (1879-1941), if at all, through Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, the first masterpiece of his pupil, Benjamin Britten. Bridge's music was all but forgotten after his death, but is coming before the public once again thanks to the work of the Frank Bridge Trust, which began subsidizing recordings of his music as early as the late Sixties, and a handful of record labels, Chandos foremost among them.

The present collection is the fourth volume of conductor Hickox's ongoing traversal of Bridges orchestral music. It includes works spanning most of the composer's creative life, though in one sense the program might create a wrong impression of his musical development.

The CD begins with his last completed work, an overture called Rebus written in 1940 to celebrate life against the backdrop of the second great war in his lifetime. It is a fine piece and the performance could hardly be bettered. Yet it is not typical of the composer's later music which had become more abstract and experimental during the inter-war years.

Most of the other pieces here reflect in one way or another Bridge's reactions to World War I. The earliest is the 1915 Lament for string orchestra, a beautiful, almost serene memorial to Catherine, a nine-year-old friend who died with her family in the sinking of the Lusitania.

A Prayer, written between 1916 and 1918 is a gentle but stirring setting of "A Prayer that the Will of God Be Done" from The Imitation of Christ by the fourteenth-century German mystic Thomas à Kempis. It was not performed until after the Armistice. Despite its sound construction and heart-felt sentiments it is not an altogether memorable piece. It owes more to the English anthem tradition and the influence of composers like Stanford and Parry than to the mainstream of Bridge's musical development.

If there is one work on this CD that earns Bridge a place among the immortals, it is Oration (Concerto elegiaco) for cello and orchestra. Though not written until 1930, it is an enshrinement of the convictions and feelings he developed during the First World War. Half an hour long and in a single movement of twelve sections, it is an imposing work in every way. Wonderfully expressive, it never wears it heart on the sleeve.

Harmonically it is the most sophisticated piece on the CD, though it remains fundamentally tonal throughout. Few listeners will find it difficult on that account, yet it does require considerable listener attention to make sense.

It's also a work that doesn't play itself, but that's not a problem in this recording. Cellist Gerhardt, conductor Hickox and the orchestra deliver an exquisitely committed account of this too-little known masterpiece. Indeed there isn't a less than excellent performance to be heard in all the seventy-seven minutes of music in this program.