The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace
The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace is a mass by the Welsh composer Karl Jenkins , subtitled "A Mass for Peace". Like Benjamin Britten's War Requiem , it's an anti-war piece. It is based on texts from the Catholic Mass liturgy , which Jenkins linked with other sources, above all the soldier's song L'homme armé from the 15th century, which has become a folk song . It was written for a four-part mixed choir with two soloists (soprano and muezzin ) and a symphonic orchestra .
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The work was commissioned by the Museum Royal Armories on the occasion of the millennium and also marks the museum's move from London to Leeds . Guy Wilson, the museum director at the time, selected the additional texts. The work is dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo war .
overview
In addition to parts of the mass , the piece contains passages from other religious and historical sources, for example the Islamic call to prayer , the Bible ( Psalms and Revelation of John ) and Mahabharata . Texts by Rudyard Kipling , Alfred Lord Tennyson and Tōge Sankichi , who survived the atomic bombing on Hiroshima but died of leukemia a few years later, are also used.
The Armed Man depicts the growing threat of relegation to war, interspersed with contemplative moments. It shows the horrors of war and ends with the hope of peace in a new millennium when "grief, pain and death can be overcome".
The piece begins with the representation of marching feet. This is later overlaid by the shrill tones of a piccolo flute , which, like the flute of a military band, plays the French-language soldier song L'homme armé from the 15th century.
It follows a contemplative pause with the call to prayer (Call to Prayer) and the Kyrie . Then, with words from the Book of Psalms (Psalm 56 and 59 ) Save Me from Bloody Men (Help me against the bloodthirsty), God's help against the enemy is asked. The subsequent Sanctus has a military, threatening melody. This is followed by the poem Hymn Before Action , a prayer of the soldiers before the battle. It comes from Kipling's work The Seven Seas from 1896. Starting with war trumpets, the piece Charge! (Attack!). It is based on texts from Dryden's Song for St Cecilia's Day from 1687 and Jonathan Swift's To the Earl of Oxford (after Horace). After the screams of the dying, there is an eerie silence on the battlefield. It is ended by the horn signal The Last Post , which is mainly played at military funerals. This is followed by two pieces from different times, which impressively describe the suffering: Angry Flames (angry flames) and Torches (torches). Tōge Sankichi wrote Angry Flames , in which he describes the horrific events after the bombing of Hiroshima. Torches , an excerpt from the Mahabharata, which was written between 400 BC. It originated in India in BC and AD 400 and depicts the horror and suffering of burning animals in the Khandava forest. The subsequent Agnus Dei is followed by Now the Guns have Stopped (Now that the guns are silent), the British version Historian Guy Wilson wrote. It depicts the self-reproaches of the survivors of the war. After the Benedictus qui venit , the mass ends with Better is Peace , in which texts by Thomas Malory , Alfred Lord Tennyson, from the song L'homme armé and from the Revelation of John are processed. In this piece, on the one hand, the hope is expressed that God will wipe away all tears ( Revelation 21.4 EU ), on the other hand (like the characters in the Arthurian legend Lancelot and Guinevere ) one arrives at the hard-won insight that peace is better than war ( Malory and Lord Tennyson).
| sentence | designation | information |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Armed Man | Anonymous, 1450–1463, French |
| 2 | Call to Prayers | Islamic call to prayer ( Adhaan ), Arabic |
| 3 | Kyrie | Liturgy, greek |
| 4th | Save me from Bloody Men | Psalm 56 and 59, English |
| 5 | Sanctus | Liturgy, Latin |
| 6th | Hymn before action | Rudyard Kipling, from: The Seven Seas , 1896, English |
| 7th | Batch! |
|
| silence | ||
| 8th | Angry Flames | Tōge Sankichi, 1945, English |
| 9 | Torches | Mahabharata, Book 1, Chapter 228, 400 B.C. Chr., English |
| 10 | Agnus Dei | Liturgy, Latin |
| 11 | Now the guns have stopped | Guy Wilson, English |
| 12 | Benedictus | Liturgy, Latin |
| 13 | Better is Peace |
|
Performances
The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace was first performed on April 25, 2000 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Grant Llewellyn conducted the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and the National Musicians Symphony Orchestra, with Julian Lloyd Webber as principal cellist.
The work is one of Jenkins' most popular compositions and is also frequently performed by laypeople.
On November 2, 2018, Jenkins signed a performance of the work in the Mercedes-Benz-Arena Berlin with around 2,000 choir singers from 27 countries and the World Orchestra for Peace. The occasion was the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War .
Instrumentation
The mass is written for a large symphony orchestra with a large percussion.
- Piccolo
- 2 flutes (both also piccolo)
- 2 oboes
- English horn
- 2 clarinets
- Bass clarinet
- 2 bassoons
- Contrabassoon
- 4 horns
- 3 trumpets
- 3 trumpets
- tuba
- Timpani
- Strings
as well as five percussionists who play the following instruments:
- 3 small drums
- Landsknecht drum
- 4 tom toms
- Surdo
- Floor toms
- pool
- 2 big drums
- Shekere
- Congas
- Drums
- Hoopla
- triangle
- Taiko
- Wind chimes
- Chimes
- Bell in low D.
- Quint
- Tambourine
- Tamborim
- Tubular bells
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace Information on Karl Jenkins' homepage
- ↑ a b Program excerpt from www.boosey.com (English) accessed on April 1, 2015
- ↑ Mahabharata 1, 228
- ^ Darren Henley: What makes Karl Jenkins the Marmite man of music? . In: The Times , March 7, 2008. Retrieved September 21, 2010.
- ^ Karl Jenkins conducts The Armed Man in Berlin. Boosey & Hawkes , August 2018, accessed January 11, 2020 .