Eight Songs for a Mad King
E560408
Eight Songs for a Mad King is an avant-garde monodrama for baritone and chamber ensemble that portrays the mental disintegration of King George III through extreme vocal techniques and fragmented musical textures.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Eight Songs for a Mad King canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5994821 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Eight Songs for a Mad King Context triple: [Peter Maxwell Davies, notableWork, Eight Songs for a Mad King]
-
A.
The King’s Men
The King’s Men was the acting company in early 17th-century England that included William Shakespeare as a leading member and performed many of his plays.
-
B.
One-Eyed Kings
One-Eyed Kings is a work by American author and politician William S. Cohen, reflecting his blend of political insight and literary craft.
-
C.
The King Shall Rejoice
"The King Shall Rejoice" is a festive coronation anthem composed by George Frideric Handel, celebrated for its grand choral writing and association with British royal ceremonies.
-
D.
The King’s Consort
The King’s Consort is a renowned British period-instrument ensemble and choir specializing in historically informed performances of Baroque and early Classical music.
-
E.
The King
The King is a conman and one of the two unscrupulous drifters who travel with Huck and Jim, posing as royalty to swindle people in Mark Twain’s "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Eight Songs for a Mad King Target entity description: Eight Songs for a Mad King is an avant-garde monodrama for baritone and chamber ensemble that portrays the mental disintegration of King George III through extreme vocal techniques and fragmented musical textures.
-
A.
The King’s Men
The King’s Men was the acting company in early 17th-century England that included William Shakespeare as a leading member and performed many of his plays.
-
B.
One-Eyed Kings
One-Eyed Kings is a work by American author and politician William S. Cohen, reflecting his blend of political insight and literary craft.
-
C.
The King Shall Rejoice
"The King Shall Rejoice" is a festive coronation anthem composed by George Frideric Handel, celebrated for its grand choral writing and association with British royal ceremonies.
-
D.
The King’s Consort
The King’s Consort is a renowned British period-instrument ensemble and choir specializing in historically informed performances of Baroque and early Classical music.
-
E.
The King
The King is a conman and one of the two unscrupulous drifters who travel with Huck and Jim, posing as royalty to swindle people in Mark Twain’s "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
contemporary classical music work
ⓘ
monodrama ⓘ musical composition ⓘ |
| associatedMovement | British avant-garde ⓘ |
| commissionedBy | South Bank Centre NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| composer | Peter Maxwell Davies NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| dedicatedTo | Roy Hart NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| depictsTheme |
isolation
ⓘ
madness ⓘ psychological breakdown ⓘ |
| genre |
avant-garde music
ⓘ
contemporary classical music ⓘ music theatre ⓘ |
| hasInstrumentation |
cello
ⓘ
clarinet ⓘ flute ⓘ percussion ⓘ piano ⓘ violin ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| narrativeFocus | mental disintegration of King George III ⓘ |
| notableFeature |
extreme demands on the solo singer
ⓘ
integration of music and theatre ⓘ use of fragmented, collage-like musical materials ⓘ |
| numberOfMovements | 8 ⓘ |
| performancePractice |
often performed in contemporary music festivals
ⓘ
requires theatrical staging ⓘ |
| periodOfComposition | late 1960s ⓘ |
| portraysCharacter | King George III NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| premiereDate | 1969 ⓘ |
| premiereLocation | London NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| scoredFor |
baritone
ⓘ
chamber ensemble ⓘ |
| structure | cycle of eight songs ⓘ |
| style |
experimental
ⓘ
expressionist ⓘ |
| subject | George III of the United Kingdom NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| theatricalElements |
Sprechstimme
ⓘ
acting ⓘ screaming ⓘ spoken voice ⓘ |
| timePeriod | 20th-century music ⓘ |
| usesMusicalTexture | fragmented musical textures ⓘ |
| usesVocalTechnique | extended vocal techniques ⓘ |
| vocalRange | baritone with extreme range ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Eight Songs for a Mad King Description of subject: Eight Songs for a Mad King is an avant-garde monodrama for baritone and chamber ensemble that portrays the mental disintegration of King George III through extreme vocal techniques and fragmented musical textures.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
Peter Maxwell Davies