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The Armed Man
The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace is a mass by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins written in reflection of the passing of ‘the most war-torn and destructive century in human history’ and as a message of hope that the world of the future would have more peace and fewer wars. It was commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum for the Millennium celebrations, to mark the museum's move from London to Leeds, and was dedicated to victims of the Kosovo crisis.
Like Benjamin Britten's War Requiem before it, it is essentially an anti-war piece and is based on the Catholic Mass, which Jenkins combines with other sources, principally the 15th-century folk song "L'homme armé" in the first and last movements, as well as during the Kyrie. It was written for SATB chorus with soloists (soprano and muezzin) and a symphonic orchestra.
In addition to extracts from the Ordinary of the Mass, the text incorporates words from other religious and historical sources, including the Islamic call to prayer, the Bible (e.g., the Psalms and Revelation) and the Mahabharata. Writers whose words appear in the work include Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Sankichi Toge, who survived the Hiroshima bombing but died some years later of leukaemia.
The Armed Man charts the growing menace of a descent into war, interspersed with moments of reflection, shows the horrors that war brings, and ends with the hope for peace in a new millennium, when "sorrow, pain and death can be overcome". It begins with a representation of marching feet, overlaid later by the shrill tones of a piccolo impersonating the flutes of a military band with the 15th-century French words of "The Armed Man". After the reflective pause of the Call to Prayer and the Kyrie, "Save Us From Bloody Men" appeals for God's help against our enemies in words from the Book of Psalms (Psalm 59). The Sanctus has a military, menacing air, followed by Kipling's "Hymn Before Action". "Charge!" draws on words from John Dryden's "A song for St. Cecilia's day" (1687) and Jonathan Swift citing Horace (Odes 3,2,13), beginning with martial trumpets and song, but ending in the agonised screams of the dying. This is followed by the eerie silence of the battlefield after action, broken by a lone trumpet playing the Last Post. "Angry Flames" describes the appalling scenes after the bombing of Hiroshima, and "Torches" parallels this with an excerpt from the Mahabharata (book 1, chapter 228), describing the terror and suffering of animals dying in the burning of the Khandava Forest. Agnus Dei is followed by "Now the Guns have Stopped", written by Guy Wilson himself as part of a Royal Armouries display on the guilt felt by some returning survivors of World War I. After the Benedictus, "Better is Peace" ends the mass on a note of hope, drawing on the hard-won understanding of Lancelot and Guinevere that peace is better than war, on Tennyson's poem "Ring Out, Wild Bells" and on the text from Revelation 21:4: "God shall wipe away all tears".
In 2002, Boosey & Hawkes published a chorale suite with excerpts from the work for choir and orchestra (or organ), containing Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei and "Hymn before Action". Jenkins wrote an Agnus Dei setting for choir a cappella based on the material from the Agnus Dei from the mass, basically assigning the chords of the accompaniment to divided male voices.
The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on 25 April 2000, performed by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and the National Musicians Symphony Orchestra with Julian Lloyd Webber as the cello soloist, and conducted by Grant Llewellyn.
The piece is one of Jenkins' most popular works and is regularly performed by professional and amateur musicians. By 2023 it had received nearly 3,000 performances worldwide. The 3,000th performance was held at the Royal Albert Hall on 10 March 2024, in a celebration of Karl Jenkins' 80th birthday, under the leadership of Jenkins himself.
The first CD release was recorded at AIR Studios during summer of 2000 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karl Jenkins and The National Youth Choir of Great Britain conducted by Mike Brewer, and released on the Virgin label on 10 September 2001.
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The Armed Man
The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace is a mass by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins written in reflection of the passing of ‘the most war-torn and destructive century in human history’ and as a message of hope that the world of the future would have more peace and fewer wars. It was commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum for the Millennium celebrations, to mark the museum's move from London to Leeds, and was dedicated to victims of the Kosovo crisis.
Like Benjamin Britten's War Requiem before it, it is essentially an anti-war piece and is based on the Catholic Mass, which Jenkins combines with other sources, principally the 15th-century folk song "L'homme armé" in the first and last movements, as well as during the Kyrie. It was written for SATB chorus with soloists (soprano and muezzin) and a symphonic orchestra.
In addition to extracts from the Ordinary of the Mass, the text incorporates words from other religious and historical sources, including the Islamic call to prayer, the Bible (e.g., the Psalms and Revelation) and the Mahabharata. Writers whose words appear in the work include Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Sankichi Toge, who survived the Hiroshima bombing but died some years later of leukaemia.
The Armed Man charts the growing menace of a descent into war, interspersed with moments of reflection, shows the horrors that war brings, and ends with the hope for peace in a new millennium, when "sorrow, pain and death can be overcome". It begins with a representation of marching feet, overlaid later by the shrill tones of a piccolo impersonating the flutes of a military band with the 15th-century French words of "The Armed Man". After the reflective pause of the Call to Prayer and the Kyrie, "Save Us From Bloody Men" appeals for God's help against our enemies in words from the Book of Psalms (Psalm 59). The Sanctus has a military, menacing air, followed by Kipling's "Hymn Before Action". "Charge!" draws on words from John Dryden's "A song for St. Cecilia's day" (1687) and Jonathan Swift citing Horace (Odes 3,2,13), beginning with martial trumpets and song, but ending in the agonised screams of the dying. This is followed by the eerie silence of the battlefield after action, broken by a lone trumpet playing the Last Post. "Angry Flames" describes the appalling scenes after the bombing of Hiroshima, and "Torches" parallels this with an excerpt from the Mahabharata (book 1, chapter 228), describing the terror and suffering of animals dying in the burning of the Khandava Forest. Agnus Dei is followed by "Now the Guns have Stopped", written by Guy Wilson himself as part of a Royal Armouries display on the guilt felt by some returning survivors of World War I. After the Benedictus, "Better is Peace" ends the mass on a note of hope, drawing on the hard-won understanding of Lancelot and Guinevere that peace is better than war, on Tennyson's poem "Ring Out, Wild Bells" and on the text from Revelation 21:4: "God shall wipe away all tears".
In 2002, Boosey & Hawkes published a chorale suite with excerpts from the work for choir and orchestra (or organ), containing Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei and "Hymn before Action". Jenkins wrote an Agnus Dei setting for choir a cappella based on the material from the Agnus Dei from the mass, basically assigning the chords of the accompaniment to divided male voices.
The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on 25 April 2000, performed by the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and the National Musicians Symphony Orchestra with Julian Lloyd Webber as the cello soloist, and conducted by Grant Llewellyn.
The piece is one of Jenkins' most popular works and is regularly performed by professional and amateur musicians. By 2023 it had received nearly 3,000 performances worldwide. The 3,000th performance was held at the Royal Albert Hall on 10 March 2024, in a celebration of Karl Jenkins' 80th birthday, under the leadership of Jenkins himself.
The first CD release was recorded at AIR Studios during summer of 2000 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karl Jenkins and The National Youth Choir of Great Britain conducted by Mike Brewer, and released on the Virgin label on 10 September 2001.