Since the Renaissance, the British music has taken an important role in the history of Western musical scene. Until after the Baroque period, this attention has shift to focus on the composers such as Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms. The output of the British composition during this period, do not have such creativeness and vital spirit compare to those compositions by composers in the European continent. However, from the late 19th century, there was a revival in the British musical scene. Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, (1848-1918) and Charles Villiers Stanford, (1852-1924) both went to study in Germany and brought back to their homeland this idea of finding and creating their own language in music, which was called the Nationalism. Bax, Bridge and Elgar were their students and followed this trend.This paper is focused on the modern British music, with an introduction on the historical background in the 19th century. Use Frank Bridge’s “Cello Sonata” and Arnold Bax’s “Folk-Tale” as examples to further explore their individual background, and how they have been influences by this Nationalistic trend and what are the compositional traits to create their own language. Through this process of analyzing the music can open the eyes of the interpreter to achieve a deeper understanding of the music in order to have multi-level knowledge to enrich the fantasy in creating sound colors with the interpretation of the connotation.
