The Armed Man

[pangurban]

I know the purists get a bit sniffy about Karl Jenkins but I have just listened to The Armed Man a Requiem for peace and it moved me to tears. The benidictus is probably the most beautiful and sublime eight minutes of music I have ever heard.

[BlueRaven]

Hi pangurban,
Totally agree. It is the purest musical magic.
Mark Blueraven

[Sirona.Bardin]

Dear friends,
recently I had the chance to sing the Mass with my choir.
What appealed to me right from the first rehearsal was that the texts were from many sources: the Christian mass, the Jewish psalms, a Muslim prayer, the Indian Mahabarata (the piece is called "Torches"), and Japanese text about Hiroshima ("Angry Flames"). The languages are Latin, Greek, Englisch and Arabian.
The translated Indian and Japanese texts are unusually realistic about wars and death and give a strong contrast to the following pieces:
The call for a new age of peace at the end of the mass uses the same melody as the Armed Man at the beginning but then leads to the bells at the start of the new millenium of peace and a chorale that drove some of the listeners in our concert to tears.

I hope you will gain as much insights and inspiration from the Mass as I did.
Sirona
the Bard