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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ ‘Max-imising’ madness in music the gift of madness in the music of Peter Maxwell Davies Mesbahian, Fetemeh Upa Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 26. Sep. 2021 ‘Max-imising’ Madness in Music: The Gift of Madness in the Music of Peter Maxwell Davies Upa Mesbahian King’s College London A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music March 2019 !1 Abstract Perhaps no composer of the twentieth century has shown as much fascination with the topic of madness as British composer Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016). The objective of this research is to provide a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the musical representations of madness in his works. I particularly focus on four theatrical pieces: Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969), Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot (1974), The Lighthouse (1979), and The Medium (1981). These four compositions each explore a slightly different aspect of madness, while also speaking to each other in productive ways. Eight Songs is preeminent in displaying a challenge to the concept of madness itself. The definition and characteristics of mad behaviour and the identification of the mad individual are problematised in this piece. Miss Donnithorne offers a questioning of the representations of madness and the stereotypes of portraying insane female characters. Eight Songs and Miss Donnithorne, as companion pieces with significant similarities, also show with particular clarity how Davies treats male and female versions of insanity in different ways. Similarly, individual and collective experiences of madness are most plainly displayed in The Medium and The Lighthouse, respectively. Additionally, Davies’s representation of madness using purely vocal monologue, unaided by instrumental music and stage props, can be explored in the former, and his shifting of character roles to create confusion and collectivity in the latter. In the absence of a multi-dimensional study on Davies’s repertoire on madness, this research attempts to thematise, characterise, and thoroughly scrutinise the theme in the selected repertoire. More !2 specifically, this enquiry aims to shed light on the characteristics of different representations of madness in Davies’s works, how they differ, and how they can musically and theoretically be explained. The theoretical starting point of this research is Michel Foucault’s conceptualisation of madness, which has been crucial for thinking in this area. If Foucault was the pioneering figure in providing a socio-cultural understanding of madness, his counterpart in the field of psychology was certainly Sigmund Freud. I will be referring to some of Freud’s ideas regarding the relationship between violence and madness. His theories on the significance of sexuality on the mental well-being of individuals also form a major part of this thesis. Davies’s works are further contextualised in changing concepts of madness in the 1960s, brought about by the anti-psychiatry movement, and a number of gender theories, mainly developed during the 1970s and 1980s. August Hollingshead and Fredrick Redlich’s groundbreaking work on the significance of class in relation to insanity, along with the collective aspects of madness explored by Gustave Le Bon’s group mentality and Carl Jung’s notion of archetypes, are examined as well. I will also discuss speech and singing theories of Antonin Artaud, Alfred Wolfsohn and Roy Hart, which are central to decoding Davies’s works. Broadly, this study revolves around the theme of madness as a form of ‘otherness’, a distinctive way of being, in connection with the avant-garde and its tendency to welcome the new and the unfamiliar. I particularly focus on Davies as a composer intensely engaged with the theme. This project brings a discourse beyond the arts to the study of Davies’s repertoire on madness to decode the symbolic significance of !3 his dramatic and musical tools. In doing so, it reveals a sense of social responsibility in his attitude towards madness and his methods of approaching it. !4 Table of Contents Abstract 2 List of Tables, Figures, and Musical Excerpts 7 Acknowledgements 9 Chapter 1 Introduction 10 Theoretical Framework 11 Review of the Literature 34 Thesis Overview 56 Chapter 2 Eight Songs for a Mad King Exploring George III’s Lucidity-Lunacy Paradox Introduction 65 Who is Mad? 78 I Mean No Harm: The Link between Violence and Madness 81 Significance of Pastiche and Musical Quotations 88 The Oppressed King’s Insightful Moments 94 Let Us Talk: Vocality in Eight Songs 106 Conclusion 115 Chapter 3 ‘I Dare Not Call It Comedy’: The Mania of Lust in Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot Introduction 119 Overview and Scholarship 125 Stark Mad in White Satin: Modern Day Victorian Madwoman 134 The Feminised Label of Hysteria 145 Chapter 4 Identity Transmutation and the Suspense of Madness in The Medium Introduction 167 Tracing the Unknown Enigma 172 Stage Design 180 Vocality and Its Role in Communication 186 The Strain between Normalisation and Exhibition 192 The Link between Madness and Class 200 !5 Conclusion 207 Chapter 5 The Lighthouse A Tale of Collective Madness Introduction 211 Collectivity and Ambiguity: Story Overview 216 Multi-roling 221 The Use of Flashback 227 The Collective Mental State 244 Conclusion 250 Concluding Thoughts 256 Bibliography 264 !6 List of Tables, Figures, and Musical Excerpts Table 2.1. Songs and Dialogues, Eight Songs for a Mad King Figure 2.1. Peter Maxwell Davies’s Performance Note of Eight Songs for a Mad King (Boosey & Hawkes, 1971). Example 2.1. Peter Maxwell Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King, Section J1 (Boosey & Hawkes, 1971). Example 2.2. Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King, Sections A&B (Boosey & Hawkes, 1971). Example 2.3. Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King, Sections C&D (Boosey & Hawkes, 1971). Example 2.4. Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King, Section J (Boosey & Hawkes, 1971). Example 3.1. Peter Maxwell Davies, Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, Section Z (Boosey & Hawkes, 1996). Example 3.2. Peter Maxwell Davies, Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, Section Y (Boosey & Hawkes, 1996). Example 3.3. Peter Maxwell Davies, Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, Sections I&J (Boosey & Hawkes, 1996). Example 3.4. Davies, Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, Section G (Boosey & Hawkes, 1996). Example 3.5. Davies, Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, Sections H2&I2 (Boosey & Hawkes, 1996). Example 4.1. Peter Maxwell Davies, The Medium, 15 (Boosey & Hawkes, 1983). Example 4.2. Davies, The Medium, 19 (Boosey & Hawkes, 1983). Example 4.3. Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King, Section B (Boosey & Hawkes, 1971). Example 4.4. Davies, The Medium, 21 (Boosey & Hawkes, 1983). Example 5.1. Peter Maxwell Davies, The Lighthouse, Section X1 (Chester Music, 2000). Example 5.2. Davies, The Lighthouse, Sections R2&S2 (excerpts) (Chester Music, 2000). !7 Example 5.3. Davies, The Lighthouse, Sections I&J (Chester Music, 2000). !8 Acknowledgements I am grateful first and foremost to my supervisor, Dr. Heather Wiebe for her astute guidance, constructive insights and meticulous reading of my many drafts. I continue to be inspired by her intellectual rigour and innovative thinking. My warmest thanks are due to my advisor Dr. Michael Fend, particularly for his invaluable advice on the third chapter. I must express my gratitude to my examiners, Professor Robert Adlington and Dr. Lauren Redhead, for their kind acceptance to sit on the examination committee and for taking time to go through my manuscript. I would like to acknowledge Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. and Chester Music for granting permission to reproduce musical excerpts of Davies’s works. I am immensely grateful to my parents for being my constant source of support and for encouraging me throughout the process of writing. Without them, this thesis would not have been possible.I am also grateful to my little brother for cheering me up during difficult times. I extend special thanks to my partner Ali for providing happy interruptions to my work. I managed to finish this project in spite of his attempts at distracting me with entertainment. This thesis is dedicated to my parents Simin Fasihi and Hossein Mesbahian. !9 Chapter 1 Introduction Perhaps no composer of the twentieth century has shown as much fascination with the topic of madness as British composer Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016). The objective of this research is to provide a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the musical representations of madness in his works. I particularly focus on four theatrical pieces: Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969), Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot (1974), The Lighthouse (1979), and The Medium (1981).