BRIDGE's compositions from 1906 to 1912 are characterised by increased technical control and growing stylistic curiosity and individuality. This is most evident in the chamber music, which includes a number of Bridge's earliest large-scale compositions still to maintain some small foothold in the repertoire. Orchestral composition increased in the latter stages of this period, as Bridge sought to enhance his reputation, as well as reflecting his growing ambitions as a conductor. In the years after leaving the Royal College of Music, however, he focussed primarily on chamber music, as a composer and performer.

Throughout this period, and indeed up to the early 1920s, Bridge maintained a busy schedule as violist and violinist, principally with a number of prominent string quartets (second violin in the Grimson Quartet, viola in the Motto and English String Quartets). He also played in a variety of other ensembles, including groups assembled for different concert series. He was heavily involved in Thomas Dunhill's chamber concerts, Donald Tovey's Chelsea Town Hall chamber concerts and the programmes of the Classical Concert Society, where he played with many leading instrumentalists. The latter series had been instigated by the wealthy businessman Edward Speyer, a friend (and patron) of Bridge’s, to continue Joachim's annual series of chamber concerts after the great violinist's death in 1907. Bridge was a frequent visitor at Speyer's Hertfordshire home, Ridgehurst, often playing chamber music there, both as part of the ‘Ridgehurst’ Quartet (the remaining personnel being Bridge's wife Ethel, his friend and English String Quartet colleague Ivor James, and Speyer's son Ferdinand) and in other ensembles. Ridgehurst was also the venue for a private run-through of Dance Poem in 1914. He continued to play regularly in college chamber concerts (and he was active as a chamber music coach at the RCM for several years), including a pioneering performance of Debussy's String Quartet in October 1904, one of the earliest performances of the work in England. While this particular rendition was reportedly unconvincing, he later performed the work with several professional quartets.