Inmusic, especially Westernpopular music, abridge is a contrastingsection that prepares for the return of the original material section. It adds a sense of progress within a piece of music and can be used to introduce a source of tension.[2] In a piece in which the original material or melody is referred to as the "A" section, the bridge may be the third eight-barphrase in a32-bar form (the B in AABA), or may be used more loosely inverse-chorus form, or, in acompound AABA form, used as a contrast to a full AABA section.[3]
The bridge is often used to contrast with and prepare for the return of theverse and thechorus. "The b section of the popular song chorus is often called thebridge orrelease ",[4] orboredom-breaker,.[2]
The term is acalque from a German word for bridge,Steg, used by theMeistersingers of the 15th to the 18th century to describe atransitional section in medievalbar form.[5] The German term became widely known in 1920s Germany through musicologistAlfred Lorenz[6] and his exhaustive studies ofRichard Wagner's adaptations of bar form in his popular 19th-century neo-medieval operas. The term entered the English lexicon in the 1930s—translated asbridge—via composers fleeing Nazi Germany who, working in Hollywood and on Broadway, used the term to describe similar transitional sections in the American popular music they were writing.
Bridges are also common inclassical music, and are known as a specificsequence form—also known as transitions. Formally called abridge-passage, they delineate separate sections of an extended work, or smooth what would otherwise be an abrupt modulation, such as the transition between the twothemes of asonata form. In the latter context, this transition between two musicalsubjects is often referred to as the "transition theme";[7] indeed, in laterRomantic symphonies such asDvořák'sNew World Symphony orCésar Franck'sSymphony in D minor, the transition theme becomes almost a third subject in itself.[8]
The latter work also provides several good examples of a short bridge to smooth amodulation. Instead of simply repeating the wholeexposition in the original key, as would be done in a symphony of theclassical period, Franck repeats the first subject a minor third higher in F minor. A two-bar bridge achieves this transition with Franck's characteristic combination ofenharmonic andchromatic modulation. After the repeat of the first subject, another bridge of four bars leads into the transition theme in F major, the key of the true second subject.
In afugue, a bridge is
[A] short passage at the end of the first entrance of the answer and the beginning of the second entrance of the subject. Its purpose is to modulate back to the tonic key (subject) from the answer (which is in the dominant key). Not all fugues include a bridge.[9]
An example of a bridge-passage that separates two sections of a more loosely organized work occurs inGeorge Gershwin'sAn American in Paris. AsDeems Taylor described it in the program notes for the first performance:
Having safely eluded the taxis ... the American's itinerary becomes somewhat obscured. ... However, since what immediately ensues is technically known as a bridge-passage, one is reasonably justified in assuming that the Gershwin pen ... has perpetrated a musical pun and that ... our American has crossed the Seine, and is somewhere on the Left Bank.[10]
Bridges are part of the formula for drafting ahit song in Westernpopular music.[11] Songwriters use bridges to bring variety to a song, whether it be through a new melody, chord progression, or lyrics. Of theBillboard Year-End Hot 100 list of 2011, 80% of the top 20 songs follow asong form including a bridge.[11]
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