London, Queen Elizabeth Hall: Luke Bedford in Portrait

In my recent review of a Col Legno disc of music by Luke Bedford (born 1978), I described this composer as ‘a major voice’. That disc included the piece Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale, for solo violin, solo viola and 11 players (2011); this concert by the London Sinfonietta under Sian Edwards began with a reworking for 10 players and no soloists, hence its new title, Wonderful No-Headed Nightingale (the heads are lost but the bird sings on). This was the UK première of the revision. In absentia soloists, strangely, the lines seemed even more expressive. Perhaps it was the rather small space of the South Bank's Purcell Room, but climaxes tended towards overwhelming; the use of quartertones seemed emphasized by acoustics, also.