Tonight, 28 October, the Arditti String Quartet will première Luke Bedford’s Wonderful Four-Headed Nightingale in the frame of Wien Modern at the Konzerthaus, Vienna.

The composer about the piece:

This piece is a reworking of my Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale for violin, viola and fifteen players. The original title was taken from a 19th century poster advertising a pair of singing conjoined twins: Millie and Christine McCoy. They were born in slavery in 1851, sold to a showman, and yet managed to escape the fate of many performers at freak shows and built a relatively normal life for themselves. Something of their story and the poster intrigued me, and I found parallels with the music I was trying to write. From early on in the composition process I knew that the two soloists would be forced to play either identical or very similar music for most of the piece. I felt the tension between their combined, unified sound and their desire to break free from one another could be richly exploited. But I also knew that they would never be successful in tearing free. They would remain as locked together at the end of the piece as they were at the start. 

Read more.

Luke Bedford: Wonderful Four-Headed Nightingale
for string quartet | 9'
world prem. 28.10.2013, Konzerthaus, Vienna; Arditti String Quartet