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".