One day at the record store I saw a used copy for sale of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King and I bought it and took it home. I had gotten interested in the work of minimalist composer Julius Eastman and I knew that he’d sung what I’d read described as basically a weird opera, but I was otherwise unfamiliar with the piece.

The title was intriguing. What would something titled Eight Songs for a Mad King sound like? I was about to find out.

The first time I played the record, I’ll confess, it left me rather puzzled. It’s a difficult listen. I frankly didn’t know what to make of it, but one thing seemed certain, there’s nothing else even remotely similar to Eight Songs for a Mad King in modern classical music. Actually it’s not quite an opera, technically it is musical theater, a monodrama, with just one vocalist. Peter Maxwell Davies—then the enfant terrible of avant garde composers—was inspired to write the score expressly for the extended vocal range of South African actor (and world renowned vocal coach) Roy Hart and indeed the piece takes full advantage of a baritone with a five octave range. The music was arranged for six players on flute/piccolo, clarinet, percussion, piano/harpsichord, and violin/cello.

The “mad king” of the title is King George III, who suffered from acute mental illness. During his rule, George III became seriously deranged, speaking nonstop for several hours until he was foaming at the mouth and constantly repeating himself. He was delusional and hallucinated. It was claimed that the psychotic sovereign once mistook a tree for the King of Prussia. In his later years, the King tried to teach his bullfinches to sing and the players (minus the percussionist who represents the King’s handler) portray these birds musically and enact a dialogue of sorts with the insane monarch. The songs heard in the piece are actually based on the music played by a still extant miniature mechanical organ that was owned by George III that he employed to train his birds. There are snatches of Handel’s Messiah—a favorite of George III—heard during the score. The libretto was written by Randolph Stow and is derived from the words of George III. It takes the form of eight monologues delivered by the King to his bullfinches.

Eight Songs for a Mad King premiered on April 22, 1969 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London with Hart in the lead and although it was generally well-received by the audience—which included a 22-year-old David Bowie—there were smatterings of boos, heckling and several walkouts. There is little doubt that the members of the audience had never seen or heard anything like this. Peter Brooks’ Marat/Sade is the only thing even remotely comparable, but musically that play is still somewhat conventional. Hell, Captain Beefheart or the Residents sound conventional compared to Davies’ representation of the drooling mad monarch. This is not classical music for the faint of heart. The timid listener need not bother.
 
More… insanity, after the jump…