The Bearded Lady was written for oboist Nicholas Daniel, and first performed by him and Julius Drake in 1994. Anderson’s inspiration comes from Baba the Turk in Stravinsky’s opera The Rake’s Progress – an absurd, vexing, and tragic figure. The 9-minute piece begins with mechanical and polyrhythmic games of imitation between oboe and piano, before becoming a lament, with the oboist finally taking up the cor anglais and playing it offstage in a melancholy conclusion.