Classical music: Henry's Boadica | OAE King's Place | Platform 10 | Henry Purcell | urban legend | Hogwarts Express | Iceni tribe

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The Review - CLASSICAL & JAZZ
Published: 7 May 2009

Queen of the Iceni - Boadica

A queen for Kings Place

PREVIEW: HENRY'S BOADICA
OAE, King's Place

LONG-held urban legend has it that Queen Boadicea is buried under Platform 10 at King’s Cross, the very same platform used in recent years by none other than the Hogwarts Express.
The legend stems from the belief that the station was built on the site of the village of Battle-Bridge where the red-haired queen of the Iceni tribe and her Celtic followers were defeated by the Romans in 60ad.
Some 80,000 Celts are believed to have been killed. Boadicea is said to have ended her life by taking poison and was buried outside the village.
So it is most appropriate that the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment (OAE) are to stage a rare, dramatised performance of Henry Purcell’s Boadica at Kings Place on York Way near the station. The performance next Friday is part of a six-day series of concerts to mark the re-location of the OAE’s head office to Kings Place.
The concerts, starting on Tuesday, May 12, focus on the four great composers who have anniversaries this year: Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn.
Although Boadica is Purcell’s last major work, it is still a strikingly different composition from the main body of his compositions.
Roy Mowatt, OAE violinist and musicologist, says Purcell’s suites of theatre music are normally performed without any feel for the reason for their composition. So, for the OAE’s performance, extracts from the play will be used to create a dramatic context.
“There is something special about a composer’s final works,” says Mr Mowatt. “Although I wouldn’t claim Boadica is better than his other works, it is certainly top-knotch.
“It is also much more substantial than many of his theatrical incidental compositions.”

• Henry’s Boadica is at Kings Place, York Way, N1, 6.30pm & 9pm from £6.50 online, www.kingsplace.co.uk

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