If one work can be said to have secured Peter Maxwell Davies' international reputation, it would have to be his iconoclastic Eight Songs for a Mad King, a sensation when first performed in 1969 with actor Roy Hart and the Pierrot Players. This recording features Julius Eastman in Hart's role, with the ensemble that performed at the premiere renamed The Fires of London. Using a text by Randolph Stow, the piece follows the descent of King George III into madness, pointing along the way to the monarch's musical interests ...
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If one work can be said to have secured Peter Maxwell Davies' international reputation, it would have to be his iconoclastic Eight Songs for a Mad King, a sensation when first performed in 1969 with actor Roy Hart and the Pierrot Players. This recording features Julius Eastman in Hart's role, with the ensemble that performed at the premiere renamed The Fires of London. Using a text by Randolph Stow, the piece follows the descent of King George III into madness, pointing along the way to the monarch's musical interests through mangled snatches of popular songs and Handel's Comfort Ye, My People. Eastman's performance is tortured, with little resembling normal singing in the virtuosic yet technically unorthodox part. The deterioration of the king's mind is complete at the end when, after delivering the third-person eulogy, a howling Eastman departs the stage accompanied by violent whip strokes on the bass drum. Miss Donnithorne's Maggot is less horrifying than Eight Songs, though no less demented. Mary...
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Add this copy of Maxwell Davies: Miss Donnithorne's Maggot / 8 Songs for to cart. $7.44, very good condition, Sold by Books From California rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Simi Valley, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1993 by Unicorn-Kanchana.
