This work includes a passacaglia that describes giant black butterflies which blot out the sun.
Peter Maxwell-Davies composed Eight Songs For a Mad King for an ensemble of instruments commonly named for this work, which inspired the second and third of Stravinsky's Three Japanese Songs. This work includes a passacaglia that describes giant black butterflies which blot out the sun. Its main character imagines smoking tobacco from the trepanned head of Cassander in its movement "Gemeinheit," and is introduced in its first movement, "Mondestrunken." Scored for violin, flute, clarinet, cello, and piano, it was commissioned by Albertine Zehme, who sang the narration during its 1912 premiere. This melodrama consists of twenty-one movements set to the poems of Albert Giraud, which are performed using Sprechtstimme. For 10 points, name this composition about a commedia dell-arte character, written by Arnold Schoenberg.
Peter Maxwell-Davies composed Eight Songs For a Mad King for an ensemble of instruments commonly named for this work, which inspired the second and third of Stravinsky's Three Japanese Songs.
Pierrot Lunaire