Five Bridges

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The Five Bridges Suite is a modern piece of music, written in the 1960s, combining classical music and jazz. Written about the city of Newcastle UK's bridges, it was released as an album by The Nice.

History

The work was commissioned for the Newcastle Arts Festival and premiered with a full orchestra conducted by Joseph Eger on October 10, 1969 (the recorded version is from October 17 in Croydon's Fairfield Hall). The title refers to the city's five bridges spanning the River Tyne (two more have since been built over the river).

The five movements are:

Fantasia - orchestra with solo piano interludes by Keith Emerson
Second Bridge - trio without orchestra
Chorale - Keith Jackson's vocals with orchestra, alternating with piano trio interludes
High Level Fugue - piano with accompanying cymbals
Finale - a restating of the Second Bridge with additional jazz horn players.

The most elaborate orchestral writing is the Fantasia, but even this is fairly rudimentary, which is understandable as it was Emerson's first foray into this medium. Emerson credits Friedrich Gulda for inspiring the High Level Fugue, which uses jazz figures in the strict classical form. Individually, the movements are not worthy of special notice, but the suite as a whole is remarkable for its successful integration of the disparate materials. The ambitious nature of the production is also laudable - the entire suite was recorded at a concert performance and meetings of pop groups and orchestras were not at all commonplace.

Also included on the Five Bridges album were live performances from the same Fairfield Hall concert of the Sibelius Intermezzo and a movement from Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony. Both involved the orchestra playing the "straight" music juxtaposed with the trio's interpretations. Newly discovered material from this concert was later issued as part of a 3-CD set entitled Here Come The Nice.

The Five Bridges album also included a blending of Bob Dylan's Country Pie with Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 (with a quote of Coleman Hawkins' jazz line Rifftide as well) and a studio recording of the original One of Those People.

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