Eight Songs For A Mad King

Eight Songs for a Mad King is a monodrama by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by Randolph Stow, based on words of George III. The work was written for the South-African actor Roy Hart and the composer's ensemble the Pierrot Players, and premiered on 22 April 1969. Lasting half an hour, it is scored for a baritone, with an extraordinary command of extended techniques covering more than five octaves, and six players:

  • flute (doubling piccolo)
  • clarinet
  • percussion(1): railway whistle/Snare drum/ 2 susp.cymbals /foot cyms/ 2 wood blocks / Bass drum/chains/ratchet/tom-toms/tamtam/tambourine/rototoms/toy bird-calls/2tpl.bl/ wind chimes/crotales/sleigh bells/glockenspiel/steel bars/crow/didgeridoo
  • piano (doubling harpsichord & dulcimer)
  • violin
  • cello

The songs derive from tunes played by an extant mechanical organ owned by George III, tunes that he attempted to train bullfinches to sing:

  1. The Sentry (King Prussia's Minuet)
  2. The Country Walk (La Promenade)
  3. The Lady-In-Waiting (Miss Musgrave's Fancy)
  4. To Be Sung On The Water (The Waterman)
  5. The Phantom Queen (He's Ay A-Kissing Me)
  6. The Counterfeit (Le Conterfaite)
  7. Country Dance (Scotch Bonnett)
  8. The Review (A Spanish March)

The action unfolds as a soliloquy by the king, the players being placed on stage (ideally) in large birdcages, and climaxes in his snatching and smashing the violin.

The score is published by Boosey & Hawkes, and its cover shows a famous excerpt in which the staves are arranged like the bars of a birdcage.

Besides Hart, exponents of this work have included William Pearson, Michael Rippon, Thomas Meglioranza and Julius Eastman. The Swedish baritone Olle Persson performed the work in Stockholm in the 1990s. The British baritone Richard Suart has performed the piece in Gelsenkirchen‚ Milan‚ Helsinki‚ Strasbourg‚ Stavanger and Paris; in 1987 The Musical Times described Suart's take as "compelling from start to finish". Welsh baritone Kelvin Thomas sang the role at Munich's Kammerspiele Schauspielhaus in 2011.

Famous quotes containing the words songs, mad and/or king:

    “Heaven has a Sea of Glass on which angels go sliding every afternoon. There are many golden streets, but the principal thoroughfares are Amen Street and Hallelujah Avenue, which intersect in front of the Throne. These streets play tunes when walked on, and all shoes have songs in them.”
    —For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    “We all go a little mad sometimes.”
    —Joseph Stefano, U.S. screenwriter, and Alfred Hitchcock. Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins)

    “I see that Time’s the king of men;
    He’s both their parent, and he is their grave,
    And gives them what he will, not what they crave.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)