After spending an extremely positive time in Sheffield recording with the Ligeti Quartet, I had the joys of an eight hour bus journey back to Glasgow, and during it I had the chance to just listen to music. It has been a while since I was in a position where I could just listen for a day and just listen. It was rejuvenating to say the least.
While listening away, I thought to myself I really should write about pieces that particularly stick with me. Since I effectively stopped adding things to my blog about Baltic music just writing about something I love for the sake of writing about something I love has lessened, so here is a start to highlight some pieces.
I wanted to start with a piece I have had a lot of thoughts about a work by the English composer Luke Bedford; The Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale (2011) is a work for solo violin and viola, and small orchestra. The piece is named after a famous Freakshow ‘exhibit’ of the same name.
During my time in the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Luke Bedford came to visit on two occasions, one for the tour of his opera Seven Angels and then again to give a talk about his music in a more general way. In the talk he focused quite heavily on the piece highlighting mostly the inspiration of the piece as well as the musical architecture.
This piece has fascinated me for a long time, even before I had the pleasure of meeting him, however my thoughts about the piece have gone beyond its basic musical sound. Admittedly my thoughts about the piece have gotten more complex, and I do regret not talking to the composer about the piece.
The character of the piece is really rather refreshing, especially in comparison to a lot of music within Britain in general. The modal nature of the harmonies, with its heavy emphasis on fifths, combined with the microtonal elements give the piece a fascinating familiarity and ‘strangeness’.
As I have grown, my connection to the disabled world has grown stronger and more intimate. This bought the piece back to the forefront of my mind, mostly thinking — how does this depict a disabled/disfigured pair of twins?
The Two-Headed Nightingale were by no means a rare case of people being displayed in Freak Shows. Freak shows often showed Aboriginals, Native Americans, Disabled People, and many others because of their ‘degeneracy’ or ‘deviation from God’s Earth’. This practice ultimately came to an end shortly after the end of the First World War, probably because observing ‘broken people’ is not so fascinating when the vast majority of Europe witnessed the horrors of war. However, there has never really been any reparations or attempts to heal this part of our past — which is particularly alarmingly that people were being sold.
That dark side of history is not celebrated in Luke Bedford’s piece, however, it does not directly connect to it; I’d presume it is down to the simple fact Luke is not physically disabled. This being said, it is interesting to see how he ‘depicts disability’ within the piece.
Disability depiction within the arts has been horrific for a very long time. However, beyond opera, music does not necessarily address this problematic nature. Operatic tales often follow the same narrative problems — namely hideous/evil disabled characters (Das Zwerg (Zemlimsky), Rigoletto (Verdi)). However, particularly within contemporary music, depictions of psychology distress/mental illness/mental disability has become more of a theme which has been amazingly problematic as it is often a musical ‘freak show’ writing hideous or demented sounds because being mentally broken is nasty.
However, Luke Bedford’s piece fascinates me. But I think it comes down to a very simple fact that it is simply beautiful, and I think that is it. How often, in any art form, especially by non-disabled people, is disability depicted as genuinely beautiful? It lives in and of itself, the harmonic language is treated as a bright and brilliant landscape that just is. Whether the composer is aware, or intended to, he has written quite an original depiction of disability which just lets it be beautiful. Its beauty is not patronised, it goes through its own struck but it exists and is allowed to triumph. This is probably the why the older I get, the more I fall in love with this piece.
