The anonymous text was probably written in the early 1600s. The term 'Tom O’ Bedlam' was used to refer to wandering beggars who suffered from or feigned mental illness. After the dissolution of the religious houses the numbers of such beggars increased. Some may have been former inmates of the Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam). This institution began as a poor house in 1247. By the early 1400s it specialised in caring for and treating the mentally ill. It is the world’s oldest psychiatric institution and its name became synonymous with madness. Beggars from Bedlam were so common that Shakespeare disguised Edgar as one in King Lear:

Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the foul
Fiend hath led through fire and through flame …
… Do poor Tom some
Charity, whom the foul fiend vexes.
(Edgar, Act III: iv King Lear)

Composed when Richard Rodney Bennett was only 25 years old, Tom O’ Bedlam’s Song was commissioned by Peter Pears, to whom it is also dedicated. The first performance was given in Edinburgh in November 1961 when Pears was joined by the celebrated cellist Joan Dickson.

Tom O’ Bedlam’s Song is composed in a twelve tone serial style however the song’s underlying lyricism gently disguises the serial technique. No one tone or tonality dominates the piece but performing it, I experience the feeling of a minor tonality despite the dissonance of clashing semitones.

All twelve tones sound in the opening bar. The voice opens all but one verse with a declamation; the opening line yelled on one pitch. Over the next few bars the remaining eleven tones are sung, usually ending on a pitch which did not appear elsewhere in the phrase. This emphasised atonality further confuses the ear as it searches for some resolution to the declamation.

The semitone clashes between voice and cello are harsh, but as they reoccur their effect turns from musical to something more like the mental anguish that Tom endures. His sense of reality after years in Bedlam is off balance and he speaks in something akin to riddles. His reactions to what he sees are unpredictable. Bennett’s twelve tone style is extremely effective at portraying this. Tom’s method of begging is to proclaim his harmlessness. Through his song we learn how his personal history landed him in this lowly position. We also see evidence of his education, and his visionary perspective. The literary critic Harold Bloom called this poem ‘the most magnificent Anonymous poem in the language.’ Bennett’s setting captures and even relishes in Tom’s poetic humanity and fear.

from notes by Robin Tritschler © 2024