Boudicca (excerpt)
Chamber Orchestra (6:50)
Spring, 2010
View the Score
Premiered by the Azusa Pacific University Chamber Orchestra at the 2010 New Music Recital. Below are the program notes:
The Story of Boudicca
In about AD 60 Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni tribe in southern Britain, died. In his will, he left half of his kingdom to his two young daughters, and half to the Roman emperor Nero in a bid for continued peace. Instead, the Roman governor Suetonius annexed the kingdom, plundered the treasury, and declared the Iceni a conquered people. When Boudicca, the king’s widowed wife, protested the injustice of the governor’s actions, she was publicly flogged and her two young daughters were raped.
Enraged, Boudicca gathered warriors from the surrounding Celtic tribes, and led a revolt on Roman strongholds across southern Britain. They sacked and burned London to the ground, along with three other cities and a legion outpost. Finally, Suetonious regrouped and set out with two Roman legions to meet Boudicca in a final battle.
In the account given by the Roman historian Tacitus, Boudicca gathered as many as 100,000 Celtic warriors for the final battle. Just before the fighting commenced, she addressed the assembled tribes:
“Boudicea, with her daughters before her in a chariot, went up to tribe after tribe, protesting that it was indeed usual for Britons to fight under the leadership of women. ‘But now,’ she said, ‘it is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters. Roman lust has gone so far that not our very persons, nor even age or virginity, are left unpolluted. But heaven is on the side of a righteous vengeance; a legion which dared to fight has perished; the rest are hiding themselves in their camp, or are thinking anxiously of flight. They will not sustain even the din and the shout of so many thousands, much less our charge and our blows. If you weigh well the strength of the armies, and the causes of the war, you will see that in this battle you must conquer or die. This is a woman’s resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves.’” (Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals, Book XIV, Chapter 35)
Although the historical accuracy of Tacitus’ account is suspect, the speech itself remains one of the most stirring in history.
The Music
When I first heard the story of Boudicca, I was struck by its epic and cinematic quality. The story has heroes and villains, empires and rebels, a hopeless cause, tragic battles, a warrior queen, and best of all, the chance to use Celtic music. This piece takes the final battle speech and gives it the Hollywood treatment, scoring it as if it were unfolding on-screen. The first half of the piece establishes leitmotifs for Boudicca and Seutonious. In the second half, Boudicca gives her speech, with a chorus of angry Celts singing in response. My goal was to write something big, passionate, epic, and stirring.
The men’s chorus in the final section is singing a phrase borrowed from a 13th century Latin hymn by Tomas of Celano, Dies Irae.
“Day of wrath, day of wrath, there will be weeping on that day.”
