Newsletter - Past Articles
Reflections on The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace
by Janet Carter, MDC member
February, 2006 Half Notes Newsletter
Never have I found myself so eager to practice a musical work as I am Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace. It stirs the very core of my being and challenges me to examine my beliefs and my actions. The dichotomy of war and peace are alternately depicted by majestically militant and hauntingly, achingly beautiful tunes intricately woven throughout the work. Dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo crisis, the work is a fitting tribute to any victim of man’s inhumanity to man.
From all time and in all countries and religious traditions humankind has sought to be at peace. As we humans continually struggle with our failure, we call to our God to have mercy on us and grant us peace. Jenkins captures the totality of this longing for peace by including music and text that span the ages from medieval to modern and encompass varied religious traditions that outwardly seem to be the antithesis of one another, but on inspection, desire peace for the soul, for the body, and among nations.
As I sing, the image of Pablo Picasso’s tribute to the Basque village flattened during three hours of bombing practice by Hitler’s war machine on behalf of Franco comes to mind. Guernica has been called modern art’s most powerful antiwar statement. The village burned for three days and 1600 were killed or wounded. About its inception Picasso said, “A painting is not thought out and settled in advance. While it is being done, it changes as one’s thoughts change. And when it is finished, it goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it.” I find Jenkins’ music to be the same as I practice it. It has taken me on a journey, alternately disturbing and beautiful. Whereas Picasso’s Guernica is a powerful depiction of the atrocities of war, Jenkins’, The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace paints a powerful musical portrait of war and peace. Both challenge our notion of warfare as heroic and expose it as a brutal act of self destruction. Jenkins also offers hope that with God’s help, the goodness of human nature will prevail.
