Perhaps no other British composer of the first half of the twentieth century reveals a stylistic journey as varied as that of Frank Bridge, whose magnificent late-romantic orchestral suite The Sea (Naxos 8.557167) is his best known work. Bridge’s piano music can be divided into two periods. Up to the First World War much of it, such as the beautifully crafted Three Pieces, was composed in response to the demand for salon music. From the onset of war, however, Bridge’s music became much darker and more experimental. In Autumn reflects the deep emotional scars of the war and continues the more radical and intense harmonic voice that Bridge had developed in his piano masterpiece, the Sonata (1921–24).