“Historical Anthology of Music by Women”
Anne Boleyn well represents the type and class of woman who was likely to compose in the sixteenth century. The medieval era had been a good one for professional women, but their numbers shrank in the Renaissance, which was an era of humanism, conveying the notion of male preeminence in the arts and sciences. (That this was in fact a change from earlier days is perhaps difficult to recognize from the distance of modern times.) However, the cultural climate in England was relatively favorable to women, for social structures based on Roman law, which was male- dominated, did not affect the northern countries as much as they did life on the Continent.
Anne Boleyn reflects the Tudor love of music, which was characteristic not only of Henry VIII as an individual but also of his Welsh heritage, the court in general, and the kind of scholarship for which Henry was famous. All learned persons were expected to study the Quadrivium, of which theoretical (acoustical) music was a vital element, and the Trivium, in which music was regarded as an aspect of Rhetoric (a singer was called a rhetorician well into the seventeenth century). It is thus no wonder that Henry had one of the most impressive musical establishments of the world: at the end of his reign he had 60 musicians on his payroll in addition to those in the Chapel Royal.
Anne Boleyn, who was certainly one of the great passions of Henry’s life, was of relatively humble stock. Even so, her father achieved a high position under the young Henry and spent some years as Ambassador to France. Anne lived at the French court from her twelfth to her sixteenth year; a Frenchman wrote in 1522 that “she was such a graceful maiden that no one would have believed she was in fact English.” Specific mention was made of her skills in dancing, “all games fashionable at Courts,” and, of course, music. In any case, her style of composition was very English, as was her choice of instruments (she owned a virginals and was known to play the lute). She was mainly influenced by Spanish and Italian, rather than French, sources. She was known as an intelligent and vivacious woman (rather than as a beautiful one) with a good reputation as a performer and a composer.
“O Deathe, rock me asleepe,” for voice and keyboard or lute, represents a compendium of the certainties and also the probabilities of Anne’s life as a musician. Although the authenticity of this work has not been established, it comes down to us as a piece written in the Tower of London as Anne faced execution. The poem is literate and effective, with a pun on “dye” against “remedye” (the syllable “dye” having the same pronunciation in both words, like the modern “die”) and a reference to bells, which the ostinato (or ground) evokes. Grounds were newly appreciated, having been brought to English attention in modern form by such Spanish lutenists as Enriquez de Valderrabano and Diego Ortiz, and were doubtless improvised in great numbers.
The improvisatory quality of “O Deathe” and the extreme brevity of the ground figure give the piece a certain immediate sadness. The shift in the ground, to the more steeply descending figure that takes over from the “bell” ground, is a French feature, for the French never felt obliged to continue an ostinato figure beyond its artistic usefulness. The abrasions of the chromatic semitone (B against B flat and F against F sharp) are a British trait, beloved throughout the Renaissance and after,- but the restricted range of the melody and the rhythm is not typical of music of the time and must be seen as a means of conveying the terrible constrictions of sorrow. Thus the song, with its combination of English, Spanish, French, and purely individual elements, comes off as extremely personal, high in exigency and low in energy; in short, it well bespeaks the grief of the condemned queen. Even its excessive final phrase, the six consecutive statements of “I dye,” suggests the terrible final moments of her remarkable life.
Recording
“O Death,” in Songs in Shakespeare’s Plays. James Bowman, counter-tenor, and James Tyler, lute. Archiv Produktion Stereo, 2533 407.
Reprinted from Royal Collection by permission of Novello and Company, Ltd.
2
My paynes who can expres,
Alas they are so stronge;
My dolor will not suffer strength
My lyfe for to prolonge.
Toll on, etc,
3
Alone in prison stronge
I wayle my destenye;
Wo worth this cruel hap that I
Should taste this miserye.
Toll on, etc.
4
Farewell my pleasures past,
Welcum my present payne,
I fele my torments so increse
That lyfe cannot remayne.
Cease now the passing bell,
Rong is my doleful knell,
For the sound my deth doth tell,
Deth doth draw nye,
Sound my end dolefully,
For now I dye.
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