‘The Armed Man’, a mass for peace by Karl Jenkins, became famous for the wonderful cello solo in the “Benedictus”, among other things. Lena Kravets will take on this solo part. The Gürzenich Choir Cologne will sing under the direction of Christian Jeub and the Neue Rheinische Kammerorchester (NRKO) will play.
The Welsh composer created a true mass for peace with this magnificent symphonic choral work, which was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2000 and is dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo war in 1999. For this work, Jenkins not only used texts from the Catholic mass liturgy and other biblical quotations, but also the soldier's song ‘L'Homme Armé’, which inspired the title of the mass, the Islamic call to prayer of a muezzin and texts by authors such as Rudyard Kipling and others. The Armed Man is therefore not a purely Christian mass, but a universal anti-war piece that musically depicts the threatening escalation of conflicts and the horrors of war in a highly haunting and multi-faceted way, but also the hope of overcoming grief, pain and death in the newly won peace.
Performers:
Valerie Haunz, soprano
Génesis López da Silva, mezzo-soprano
Maurin Biertz, tenor
Benjamin Hewat-Craw, baritone
Soloist cello part in the ‘Benedictus’: Lena Kravets
New Rhenish Chamber Orchestra Cologne
Gürzenich Choir Cologne from 1827
Christian Jeub, conductor
