Experiencing Anne Boleyn’s Play List
Yes it’s true — with Alamire at St Martin’s in the Fields, London, Anne Boleyn’s songbook (or music collection) can be experienced. Songs, lutes, harps and all! Also with great lighting — you know it’s all going to go bad for Anne Boleyn when they change the lights from green to red for the second half!
Billed too as incorporating the words of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn through their letters, it felt like time travel was finally possible! In reality you have to battle the pillars to see the performance, but the sound is wonderful (and the setting beautiful). A mixture of choral singing, French songs accompanied with a lute and what I think was a lute vs Renaissance harp battle! Given Anne Boleyn’s reputation, it is perhaps surprising that much of the music was religious, even celebrating Mary, mother of Jesus and showing how things were not as clear cut as Catholics v Protestants in the early to mid 16th century.
Incredibly sophisticated too (particularly as Anne was exposed to royal courts) - no wonder that Henry was bowled over and impressed. But he was surrounded by intelligent, highly educated and formidable women — both in Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. In reality the words were fewer than anticipated and definitely skewed towards Anne Boleyn. We even had a word giving us her last words at the end.
Not quite sure what we listened to because an old skool performance — no introductions, just came on and performed. No programme or list either! But perhaps some of these — https://www.alamire.co.uk/discography/anne-boleyns-songbook/#tab-id-2
Quibbles aside, beautifully done. The reading of the letters was much more convincing from Team Anne Boleyn, than Team Henry VIII. Partly because Henry was denied voice (although I had a better round the pillar view of him) and partly because the reader started in a posh controlled way, exploding into passion with the infamous ‘sweet duckies’ letter. The words section did rush into Boleyn’s condemnation pretty quickly — no letter from Henry VIII offering medical advice and doctors etc. Melancholically we had letters only from Anne once she was in prison, presumably unanswered by Henry who was busy pursuing # Wife 3. I do like the idea of combining their letters and the music — just wish there had been more of the letters, given how many there are in Rome from Henry VIII to Anne! and Henry had been given a wider voice, rather than being pushed in the usual stereotype of monstrous king alone (a la Philippa Gregory).