‘McGonagall-Lieder’ is a song cycle by the contemporary Dutch composer Robert Zuidam setting words by the infamous if legendary Scottish ‘poet’ William McGonagall. The music is conducted by Oliver Knussen and performed by soprano Katrien Baerts, Pianoduo Post & Mulder and Asko|Schönberg.

The song cycle highlights the theatrical sound for which Zuidam is particularly known, and is arranged for a unique combination of instruments with four cellos, double bass, percussion and two pianos supporting the soprano voice. The texts come from William McGonagall, the Victorian poet from Dundee. The Times Literary Supplement once wrote about this legendary but controversial writer: “A real genius, for he is the only memorable bad poet in our language”. Amongst his most memorable verse is The Tay Bridge Disaster, which concludes ‘McGonagall-Lieder’.

Robert Zuidam studied composition at the Conservatory of Rotterdam. He was awarded the Koussevitzky Composition Prize for ‘Fishbone’, a work for wind instruments and piano, and a Leonard Bernstein Scholarship enabled him to return to Tanglewood as a student. In 2010, Zuidam taught and lectured at Harvard University as Erasmus Professor, and was awarded the Kees van Baaren-Prize in The Hague for his opera ‘Rage d'amours’. The core of Zuidam’s compositional activities lies in the field of vocal music, particularly that of musical theatre.