Herbert Bedford (23 January 1867 – 13 March 1945) was a composer, author, miniature painter and inventor. He was married to the soprano and composer
Liza Lehmann
Liza Lehmann (11 July 1862 – 19 September 1918) was an English soprano and composer, known for her vocal compositions.Banfield, Stephen. Grove Music Online'
After vocal studies with Alberto Randegger and Jenny Lind, and composition studies ...
from 1894 until her death in 1918. His grandsons were the conductor
Steuart Bedford
Steuart John Rudolf Bedford (31 July 1939 – 15 February 2021) was an English orchestral and opera conductor and pianist.
He was the brother of composer David Bedford and of singer Peter Lehmann Bedford and a grandson of Liza Lehmann and Her ...
and the composer
David Bedford
David Vickerman Bedford (4 August 1937 – 1 October 2011) was an English composer and musician. He wrote and played both popular and classical music. He was the brother of the conductor Steuart Bedford, the grandson of the composer, painter ...
.
Composer
Herbert Bedford attended the
City of London School
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public school Boys' independent day school
, president =
, head_label = Headmaster
, head = Alan Bird
, chair_label = Chair of Governors
, chair = Ian Seaton
, founder = John Carpenter
, special ...
and trained at the
Guildhall School of Music.
[Leach, Gerald. ''British Composer Profiles'', British Music Society, 2012] He composed the one-act opera ''Kit Marlowe'' (1897), as well as orchestral, choral and chamber music, including a distinctive body of work for solo voice and chamber ensemble.
[ Best known of these was ''Night Piece No 2 (The Shepherd)'', for voice (contralto or mezzo), flute, oboe, and piano, which won a Carnegie Award in 1925 and was published as part of the Carnegie Collection of British Music. Bedford was also one of the first “serious” composers (other than ]Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...
) to write original works for military band.[
However, his most individual musical interest was in unaccompanied song. With the Romantic tradition (especially ]Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
, Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
and Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
), intricate accompaniment had come to represent "the internal response to what was being declaimed externally by the voice", leading to an over reliance on the accompaniment. Bedford was concerned with “freeing song from the tyranny of the accompaniment”, and in his 1923 ''Essay on Modern Unaccompanied Song'' he listed 41 songs, by Frederic Austin
Frederic William Austin (30 March 187210 April 1952) was an English baritone singer, a musical teacher and composer in the period 1905–30. He is best remembered for his restoration and production of ''The Beggar's Opera'' by John Gay and Joha ...
, Eugene Bonnar, Harry Farjeon, Francesca Hall, Jane Joseph
Jane Marian Joseph (31 May 1894 – 9 March 1929) was an English composer, arranger and music teacher. She was a pupil and later associate of the composer Gustav Holst, and was instrumental in the organisation and management of various of ...
, Liza Lehmann, George Oldroyd, Cyril Scott
Cyril Meir Scott (27 September 1879 – 31 December 1970) was an English composer, writer, poet, and occultist. He created around four hundred musical compositions including piano, violin, cello concertos, symphonies, and operas. He also wrot ...
, John Tobin, Felix White, Gerrard Williams and himself.[ Published as a set by F & B Goodwin, these were laid out with each phrase on its own single line (regardless of length), to make the musical form clearer. Some, including ]Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
settings by Bedford, were performed during the Goossens Chamber Concert series at the Aeolian Hall in 1923 by contralto Esther Coleman. Bedford's interest in unaccompanied song was less akin to German expressionist ''Sprechstimme
(, "spoken singing") and (, "spoken voice") are expressionist vocal techniques between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, ''Sprechgesang'' is directly related to the operatic ''recitative'' manner of singing (in which ...
'' techniques (as some have suggested[) and closer in spirit to monodic folksong and oriental melody.][
In 1935 Bedford won the Brahms Medal, the first English composer to do so, though the reasons for the award (given to eight international composers that year rather than the usual one German or Austrian) were more political then musical. This was connected to the controversial founding of the Permanent Council for the International Co-operation of Composers under Richard Strauss, of which Bedford acted as co-Secretary. This organisation was accused at the time of furthering ]Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
cultural ambitions, set up in opposition to the non-political International Society for Contemporary Music
The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music.
The organization was established in Salzburg in 1922 as Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM) following th ...
. Bedford defended its neutrality.
Artist, author and inventor
Bedford became known as an artist before he was successful as a composer, exhibiting his works in London, Paris and New York. He mainly produced miniatures and small portraits, such as those collected in his book ''The Heroines of George Meredith'' (1914) and the coloured frontispiece and illustrations for his wife Liza Lehmann's posthumous memoirs, published in 1919. He also frequently illustrated the distinctive covers of his wife's songs.
As an author Bedford published ''Robert Schumann, His Life and Works'' in 1925. Marrying text and images, the ''Chart of the Arts'' came out in 1938 in the form of a folding linen-backed chart, illustrating music, painting, poetry, sculpture and architecture from the 5th Century BC to 1900. Copies are now hard to get hold of.
During the First World War, Herbert Bedford held a commission with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, where he was concerned with London's anti-aircraft defences. While there he invented an anti aircraft ranging device which the War Office adopted for the instruction of all AA gunnery officers.[
]
Personal life and family
Bedford married Liza Lehmann after she had retired as a singer in 1894, when she turned to composing. They had two sons, the older one (Rudolph) died in training during the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.[Banfield, Stephen. ''Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers'', p. 276] The younger, Leslie Herbert Bedford (1900–1989) carried on his father's tradition of inventing and played a key role in the development of radar. He married the soprano (and close friend of Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
) Lesley Duff. Their three sons were the conductor Steuart Bedford
Steuart John Rudolf Bedford (31 July 1939 – 15 February 2021) was an English orchestral and opera conductor and pianist.
He was the brother of composer David Bedford and of singer Peter Lehmann Bedford and a grandson of Liza Lehmann and Her ...
, the composer David Bedford
David Vickerman Bedford (4 August 1937 – 1 October 2011) was an English composer and musician. He wrote and played both popular and classical music. He was the brother of the conductor Steuart Bedford, the grandson of the composer, painter ...
and the singer Peter Lehmann Bedford (1931-2001).David Bedford obituary, ''The Independent'', 10 October 2011
/ref>
Herbert Bedford is buried with Liza Lehmann on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...
(grave 40196, grid square 106).
List of works
References
External links
*
* ''Lorenzo to Jessica'', unaccompanied song setting, performed by Emily Helferty
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bedford, Herbert
1867 births
1945 deaths
Burials at Highgate Cemetery
Lehmann family
English classical composers
19th-century British composers
19th-century British male musicians
20th-century British composers
20th-century British male musicians
English male classical composers
19th-century classical composers
20th-century classical composers
English male painters
English male non-fiction writers
19th-century English painters
19th-century English male artists
20th-century English painters
20th-century English male artists
20th-century British non-fiction writers
20th-century English male writers
People educated at the City of London School
Alumni of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama