Rick Wakeman: The Six Wives of Henry VIII Blu-ray offers solid video and great audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
Rick Wakeman's concept album 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII' became a worldwide sensation when it was released in 1973, but it took more than 30 years for the progressive rocker to get a chance to perform it live in its entirety. This presentation captures that concert. Fulfilling a decades-long dream, Wakeman performs the musical suite at Hampton Court Palace to mark the 500th anniversary of the titular king's coronation.
If you think prog rock is shorthand for the music scene in the Czech Republic, you might not be
familiar with Rick Wakeman, legendary keyboardist for Yes, one of the genre's pioneer bands.
Characterized by unusual time signatures, extremely technical arrangements, long-winded virtuoso
solos, and a near complete obliteration of the typical verse-chorus-verse song structure, prog is the
bastard child of psychedelic rock and classical opulence, birthed out of an attempt to somehow
elevate rock 'n' roll above its merely pop culture connotations. Its adherents—who typically, in my
experience, look like slightly more geeky metal heads—are well aware of Wakeman's place in
musical history. He has worked with everyone from Cat Stevens to David Bowie to Black Sabbath,
and without a doubt he's one of, if not the, best rock keyboardists of all time.
The maestro, deep in concentration...
That said, his solo career, on more than one occasion, has exemplified many of the more
ludicrous aspects of prog—the ridiculous staging, the flamboyant costumes, and, of course,
concept albums with medieval, spacey, or otherwise fantastical themes, the stuff of junior high
notebook scribbles. To give but one example, his album The Myths and Legends of King
Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable, was performed on ice at Wembley Arena,
with a troupe of goofily attired ice skaters prancing around throughout. Not exactly high art. In
May of 2009, on the 500-year anniversary of Henry VIII's ascension to the throne of England,
Wakeman was invited to play his album The Six Wives of Henry VIII at Hampton Court,
King Henry's favorite palace. This was something of a lifelong dream for Wakeman, who had
petitioned Hampton Court to allow him to play there to promote the album's 1973 release, but
was turned down because—as he tells us in the behind-the-scenes documentary included on this
disc—what he "was suggesting was tantamount to treason." I take it whoever is running the
palace nowadays is much less uptight. And while this concert isn't exactly the debacle that King
Arthur on Ice was, it still seems incredibly pompous and more than a little silly. Hampton Court
rises majestically behind the stage, and the politely seated audience is fanned out across the
grounds in prim rows of chairs. To put it in perspective for us Yanks, it would be like writing a rock
opera about the War of 1812 and staging it on the White House lawn.
Wakeman apparently got the idea for the instrumental album after picking up a cheap paperback
about the wives of Henry VIII at an airport bookstore. As he wrote in the liner notes, "This album
is based around my interpretations of the musical characteristics of the wives of Henry VIII.
Although the style may not always be in keeping with their individual history, it is my personal
conception of their characters in relation to keyboard instruments." Well, in that case, I'm going
to write a concept album based around my interpretations of the musical characteristics of The
Supreme Court, the style of which may or may not be in keeping with anything. I'm not
knocking Wakeman's musicianship—he's truly phenomenal at what he does—but I just don't see
the correlation here between the music and the supposed theme. Perhaps I just lack imagination.
The songs—each named after a different wife—do have a lot of vaguely Tudor-like trills and
embellishments, but I don't think I'd hear the album or this concert any differently if he had
named it The Protestant Reformation in England or Rick Wakeman: Renaissance
Man. To give some semblance of context, however, veteran British stage, film and television
actor Brian Blessed comes out between songs to read a few words about each of the wives. These
segues are informative but a bit rushed, with Blessed reading so fast from his script that he often
sounds out of breath.
As for the concert itself, it's clear that a lot of work went into this 2-night-only event, as
Wakeman has significantly filled out the album's sound with the addition of the 31-member
English Chamber Choir, the 53-piece Orchestra Europa, and Wakeman's own English Rock
Ensemble, which includes famous percussionist Ray Cooper, session players Dave Colquhoun and
Jonathan Noyce on guitar and bass, Headspace's Pete Rinaldi on acoustic, longtime Wakeman
collaborator Tony Fernandez on drums, and Wakeman's son Adam playing additional keyboards.
Rick Wakeman is definitely the sonic centerpiece here, though, and surrounded by no less than
eight synthesizers, his fingers absolutely fly, the resultant sound somehow seeming both out of
control and surgically precise. He's a wonder to watch, but unless you're an unrepentant prog-
head, the endless solos can get tiring, and the compositions seem unnecessarily overlong. In fact,
limited by the run-length of an LP, Wakeman had to cut many of the songs on the 1973 album
short, so here in concert he expands them to suit his original—and sometimes tedious—vision.
At times, the music reminded me of the synthesizer reinterpretations of Mozart used to score
A Clockwork Orange, but the comparison that came most often to mind was that of mid-
1990s Japanese videogames, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Standout tracks include
"Tudorture 1485"—presumably a portmanteau of "Tudor" and "overture"—and "Defender of the
Faith," a song dedicated to Henry VIII that was cut from the album for length reasons.
Tracklist:
1. Henry's Fanfare
2. Tudorture "1485"
3. Catherine of Aragon
4. Kathryn Howard
5. Jane's Prelude
6. Jane Seymour
7. Defender of the Faith
8. Katherine Parr
9. Anne of Cleves
10. Anne Boleyn
11. Tudorock
12. Tudorture "1485" Reprise
Shot with a number of hand-held, crane-mounted, and otherwise mobile high definition video
cameras, The Six Wives of Henry VIII is covered from all angles and looks Tudoriffic on
Blu-ray—so so sorry for that one—sporting a 1080i/AVC encode that's colorful, clean, and
relatively crisp. Some of the longer, full-stage shots have a tendency to look a little soft, but
when the camera operators get right up in Wakeman's British badger-like face, or show his
fingers darting like minnows, the image displays a good deal of fine detail, from the crushed
velvet and glittery sequins of the keyboardist's many cloaks, to the smallest knobs and sliders of
his multi-synth set-up. The ever-shifting stage lights cast the musicians in vivid purples, blues,
reds, and yellows, but the artificial fog that's occasionally rolled out plays havoc with the
exposure, blowing out highlights and dampening contrast. You can't really blame the transfer for
this, but it's there. Likewise, the image sometimes demonstrates the drawbacks of shooting on
less than top-of-the-line high definition video equipment. You'll catch some infrequent aliasing on
some of the finer lines, and hard edges give off slight haloes at times. That said, there's very little
digital noise in the image, and I didn't spot any overt banding or macroblocking issues. There are
few distractions, in general. If you've seen an HD video-shot concert on Blu-ray before, you're
likely already familiar with what you'll be getting with this one.
Do note that as it was nearly impossible to capture screenshots in 1080i, all of the stills here
were captured in 720p and do not represent this disc's full visual quality.
The disc includes three audio options, one of which is excellent. The other two? Not so much. The
default Linear PCM 2.0 mix is strong dynamically, but at times it seems to creep out of sync with
the video, which is endlessly irritating if you're paying attention. Also skip the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1
mix, simply because a better option exists. And that would be the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
surround track, which has all the grandeur befitting of a prog-rock magnum opus. Keyboards, as
you'd expect, are front and center here, both physically on-stage and sonically. Wakeman's analog
synthesizers buzz with potent low-end saw waves and chirp with tweaked-out intensity, and his
digital keyboards get a massive workout with bright, harpsichord-like, nimble-fingered arpeggios. In
a way, the other instruments are just a backdrop for Wakeman's insane solos—I do wish the guitars
had more bite, and the drums aren't as crisp as they could be—but there's ample distinction
between sounds and the orchestral arrangements provide perfectly sweeping ambience. The
surround channels are constantly engaged to fill out the sound-space, both with music and the
cheers of the crowd, and Brian Blessed's readings are crisp and clean. Wakeman's prog-rock acolytes
should be pleased.
Behind-the-Scenes with Rick (1080i, 16:56)
Here, Wakemen leads us through his band's practice space, introduces us to all of the players,
and
explains how this Hampton Court concert has afforded him the chance to add even more
keyboard
solos to the songs.
Booklet
The disc includes a full color, 25-page booklet that features an essay by Wakeman, profiles of
Brian
Blessed, The English Chamber Choir, Orchestra Europa, conductor Guy Protheroe, and The
English
Rock Ensemble, as well as brief biographies of Henry VIII and his six wives.
Prog-o-philiacs and Rick Wakeman fans will want to snap this release up—it's a lifelong dream
concert for some, I'm sure, and it looks and sounds excellent on Blu-ray—but I don't see this
release winning any new converts to the faith. If you pine for the days of Yes, Genesis, and King
Crimson, this is totally for you, but if you're the sort who scoffs at a grown man wearing a cape on
stage—actually, Wakeman changes capes at least three times during the set—you'll most
likely want to stay away.
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