Newsletter - Past Articles
Karl Jenkins - The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace
by Jana May, MDC member
November, 2005. Half Notes Newsletter
“I first became aware of the sound as I was driving to work. Slow, beautiful and reminiscent of. . .of what? I did not know. I had missed the introduction. But I knew there and then that I had to have it. As the music reached a crescendo, I knew I was listening to something special and fervently hoped the announcer would tell me what it was. She obliged: I had been listening to the National Youth Choir performing the Benedictus from Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace.”—anonymous listener review
On May 21, 2006, the Metropolitan Detroit Chorale will have the privilege of presenting to its audience a very special piece of music, Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace. As of this writing, The Armed Man has been performed only twice in this country, once at Carnegie Hall in New York, and once at Stanford, California, so the MDC audience will be one of the first in North America to hear a live performance.
The name Karl Jenkins is probably not a familiar one. He is a Welsh-born and educated composer who was a jazz musician for a time; he has since begun composing choral and orchestral works. The Armed Man was commissioned by the Royal Armouries to commemorate the millennium, and was dedicated to the survivors of the Kosovo conflict. The release of the CD coincided almost to the day with the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in September of 2001, rendering the piece even more poignant and significant.
Although Americans may not be familiar with Jenkins, those who live across the Atlantic certainly are. The Armed Man CD almost immediately shot to the top of the classical music chart and remained at or near the top for 30 consecutive weeks. It is still a very popular work and is performed frequently by choral groups on the continent and in the U.K.
What is the reason for all this enthusiasm? That soon becomes clear as one listens to this work. The music is exciting because it is not what one comes to expect from a mass; rather, according to MDC director Pasquale Pascaretti, it is an attempt to forge a new genre, "world music," which combines comfortable, traditional Western forms such as the mass, the plainchant, and the ballad with less usual rhythms and harmones from around the world. In addition, the text of The Armed Man reflects this cross-cultural intention, as well, including Western poetry (Kipling, Malory, Swift, Dryden, Tennyson), Bible verses, Japanese post-Hiroshima poetry, a piece from the Hindu Mahabharata, and the Muslim call to prayer, along with traditional elements of the mass (Kyrie, Agnus Dei, Sanctus, Benedictus).
It is not only the use of the unfamiliar that makes The Armed Man so compelling, however; it is the sheer excellence of the music itself. The Chorale began rehearsals for The Armed Man early in the fall of this year, touching briefly on the full choral pieces such as the “Kyrie”, the “Hymn Before Action”, and the “Benedictus”, and the singers were immediately filled with awe and excitement, and the certainty that here was something truly special. Despite the wide variety of musical styles, the piece is unified by its central theme as it explores mankind's bent toward the act of war and its terrible consequences. Jenkins' sympathy for the victims of the Kosovo conflict (and, indeed, for all victims of violent acts) is obvious, and his passionate belief in the detructiveness of war and in the necessity for peace shines through every line, spurring the listener to explore the issue and reach his or her own conclusions.
Guy Wilson, Master of the Royal Armouries, said it best: "The theme that 'the armed man must be feared', which is the message of the song [L'Homme Arme (The Armed Man)], seemed to me painfully relevant to the 20th Century, and so the idea was born to commission a modern 'Armed Man Mass.' What better way both to look back and reflect as we leave behind the most war-torn and destructive century in human history, and to look ahead with hope and commit ourselves to a new and more peaceful millennium.
