Songs for a (Mad) King

Farmer George, a new work by Finnish composer Osmo Tapio Räihälä and US-American baritone and librettist Thomas Florio, explores the early life of King George III of England – the famous “Mad King” depicted so iconically in Peter Maxwell Davies’ 1969 work, Eight Songs for a Mad King. Where Maxwell Davies’ work shows the titular king deep in the throes of illness, with only the briefest glimpses of sanity, Farmer George shows the king still in control of his faculties in the days before his final descent into madness. He reflects on his life, his hopes and dreams, in full awareness of how hard he tried to be a truly good man, how much he gained, and how much he’s already lost – even as the darkness that will eventually take him inches ever closer.

Farmer George has been written explicitly to be performed before Eight Songs for a Mad King with no break between the works, effectively crafting one single story. Thomas Florio has performed Eight Songs extensively across Europe over the last decade, most recently in the Louvre with Klaus Mäkelä and members of the Orchestre de Paris. Thomas brings a unique perspective to the role of George III; in addition to his work on stage, he’s also a therapist and coach specializing in Internal Family Systems therapy. His work in the realm of psychotherapy focuses on helping clients listen to their internal voices (internal critics, shamers, angry voices, and more) and build compassion with them, in order to help them. The character of George III in both Farmer George and Eight Songs is beset upon by extreme inner voices, and Florio’s ability to externalize on stage the inner struggle of the King is what makes this portrayal so engaging.

Eight Songs for a Mad King holds a unique power in performance, providing the audience with the opportunity to build compassion for a character whom they might, in other circumstances, prefer to avoid entirely. Farmer George shows the man before the madness, effectively raising him up higher so that the inevitable fall that comes in Eight Songs hits harder than ever before.

The world premiere of Farmer George will take place on July 19, 2025 at the Bregenzer Festspiele in a semi-staged concert production without conductor.

From Mad King to Farmer George: A New Monodrama Inspired by a Misunderstood Monarch

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s (1934–2016) Eight Songs for a Mad King is a cult piece whose extremity draws singers like moths to a flame.

It’s not about bel canto, of course, but rather the art of vocal acrobatics pushed beyond its limits – howling, gurgling, spluttering and screaming. Considering how technically demanding it is, the 1969 work continues to appear frequently in concert programmes – a true avant-garde classic. Some performers even specialise in it: the American baritone Thomas Florio (b. 1984), based in Berlin, has sung the Mad King time and again, endlessly fascinated by its psychological depth and emotional power.

The Mad King does, however, pose a practical problem: it lasts around 33 minutes – not quite enough for a full-length concert, and its frenzied character makes it difficult to pair with anything else.

This is where chance stepped in. During the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in summer 2024, Thomas and I were housed in the same private home. Our conversations soon turned to Mad King, and we began wondering what might work alongside it. We were both deeply intrigued by the central figure of the piece, King George III of Great Britain and Ireland (1738–1820) – who, although severely mentally ill in his final years, had not always been ‘mad’. In fact, George III was a new kind of monarch: he sought to embody the ideals of a noble, virtuous ruler – a patriotic king who prioritised the well-being of his country and its citizens over autocracy, splendour, or riches. His predecessors had been rowdy and immoral despots. George was raised with these ideals by John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, who nevertheless abandoned him soon after his accession, retreating to Scotland and leaving the young king to govern alone – somewhat adrift.

George III was an eccentric figure. He was the first Hanoverian king to speak mainly English, and he had an unusually down-to-earth set of interests: woodturning, ceramics, botany – and, above all, agriculture. He would walk through vegetable plots and fields, stopping in to chat with ordinary folk about farming. No wonder he earned the nickname Farmer George. Although his marriage was naturally a political arrangement, he genuinely and deeply loved Queen Charlotte, and – good heavens! – took an active role in raising their 15 children, which was unheard of at the time. The loss of several of them hit him hard. The early death of young Prince Octavius, and later that of his youngest daughter Princess Amelia, are both thought to have accelerated his mental decline.

Just a few weeks after the Kuhmo Festival, Thomas told me he had been invited to perform Mad King at the Bregenz Festival in Austria in summer 2025. He had been asked what other piece could share the programme, and wanted to know whether a new work might be possible, despite the tight schedule. Of course it was – I was so excited I could barely sit still! The Bregenz Festival agreed to commission a new piece for the occasion, and I cleared my calendar entirely to compose it. The premiere was scheduled for Saturday 19 July 2025, at the Seestudio of the Bregenz Festspielhaus.

Next question: who would write the libretto? It felt obvious that we should do it ourselves. And so began a deep dive into the life and times of George III. Thomas drafted the first version of the libretto, which we used as a foundation for our working sessions during a workshop in Helsinki in February 2025. We tossed ideas and themes back and forth, bouncing questions about structure, content and key motifs off one another. From these discussions, Thomas developed the English-language libretto, which we continued to refine during the composition process. Its poetic strength and depth are such that I believe it could stand alone as a dramatic poem.

The result is a monodrama titled Farmer George, written for the same ensemble as Mad King: a singer and a sextet comprising flute, clarinet, percussion, piano/harpsichord, violin and cello. The new piece lasts just over twenty minutes, and together with Mad King, the programme forms a compact and powerful one-hour experience. Composing it during early 2025 was undoubtedly the most intense working period of my life – at times I was in a state of what one might call hyperfocus: everything in my waking (and occasionally dreaming) life revolved around Farmer George and its music.

My starting point for this composition was rather unusual. I had no desire to write a pastiche of 18th-century music – although I do quote both Handel and William Boyce, who was George III’s Master of the King’s Musick – but nor did I wish to attempt some revolutionary new form of avant-garde music. Competing with Maxwell Davies in extremity or innovation seemed a futile idea. After all, Farmer George was still in possession of his sanity – albeit an unconventional character for a monarch, even in his own time. I wanted the music to reflect his reason, serenity, and nobility – traits that eventually clash with profound disappointment and, ultimately, despair. The score contains both lyrical harmony and explosive turbulence – much like life itself.

The power of Farmer George depends entirely on the presence and intensity the performer brings to it. There is no need for operatic sets or costumes – George’s battle is internal and psychological. What finally drives him to the brink, to the point where his mind collapses into madness? Fortunately, Thomas Florio is ideally suited to this task. Not only is he a magnificent singer, he’s an extraordinary actor – and, crucially, he knows the libretto inside out. I certainly hope that in time, other Mad King performers will choose to pair it with Farmer George – but for now, all my focus is on the forthcoming world premiere. I can hardly wait!