Try me, good King is a group of five songs drawn from the final letters and gallows speeches of the first five wives of King Henry VIII. The cycle is a psychologically intense monodrama that presents technical challenges to both performers. Each song is named after one of the five wives, and is interwoven with lute songs composed during the Elizabethan period. In the words of the composer, these interwoven lute songs 'create a tapestry of unsung works which comment on the real situation of each doomed queen'.

Programme Notes:

Divorce, behead, die, divorce, behead, die. This grade school memory game is how I first came to know about the six wives of Henry the VIII, King of England from 1509 to 1547. Since then, I've been fascinated with the personal consequences of power that befell the Tudor family and the circle of political intrigue of both church and state which caused such a wrenching in the private lives of the seven peopleHenry and his six wives.
Try Me, Good King is a group of five songs drawn from the final letters and gallows speeches of Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, and Katherine Howard. Henrys sixth wife, Katherine Parr, outlived him and brought some domestic and spiritual peace into Henrys immediate family. Although her written devotions are numerous, her role in the story of the six wives of Henry VIII is that of a peaceful catalyst. In these songs I chose to focus on the intimate crises of the heart that affected the first five of the six wives. In a sense, this group is a monodrama of anguish and power.
I've interwoven a lute song into each song, including John Dowlands In Darkness Let Me Dwell (Katherine of Aragon and Katherine Howard), Dowlands If My Complaints (Anne Boleyn), Praetorius Lo, how a Rose Eer Blooming (Jane Seymour), and Thomas Campions I Care Not for these Ladies (Anne of Cleves). These songs were composed during the reign of Elizabeth I, and while they are cast as some of the finest examples of the golden age, they also create a tapestry of unsung words which comment on the real situation of each doomed queen.
Two other musical gestures unify the songs, firstly, the repeated note, which recalls the lute and creates psychological tension. The second device I created is abstract bell-tolling, which punctuates each song and releases the spiritual meaning of the words.
It is an honor to create new work for Meagan Miller and Brian Zeger, and contribute to the ongoing vision of the Marilyn Horne Foundation.