Karl Jenkin’s The Armed Man – Sheet Music

“Do we want the new millennium to be like the last? Or do we join with Tennyson when he tells us to Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace?” Guy Wilson, former Master of the Armouries

This is the question posed by Karl Jenkins’s master work The Armed Man. When commissioned to write a piece to celebrate the Royal Armouries Museum moving from London to Leeds, and to bring in the new millennium, Jenkins chose to build on the model put forth in Britten’s War Requiem, and write a work chastising war, and championing peace. Browse our sheet music and scores, and explore all the wonderful editions of this great work with Stretta Music today.

The Armed Man – A Mass for Peace

“..the build up to conflict, conflict itself and the aftermath, finally looking forward to a better future” Karl Jenkins

On receiving the commission, Karl Jenkins decided to dedicate The Armed Man to the victims of the Kosovo Crisis. Using Britten’s War Requiem as a structural basis, Jenkins follows the structure of the Latin Mass but intertwines various other musical elements and texts.

The title comes from the 15th century French folk song, “L’homme armé”, which he quotes throughout the work, and he chose to write for soprano soloist, meuzzin, chorus and orchestra. The work is interspersed with calls to prayer, folk themes, and texts by Tennyson, Kipling, John Dryden, Jonathan Swift and Guy Wilson. Jenkins also uses texts from the Bible, depictions of animals dying in the Khandava Forest from the Mahabharata, and Sankichi Toge’s account of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing.

“In a rapturous performance, by turns visceral and ethereal, the Mass was a firebomb of orchestral and human voices.” The Times

The Premier, which took place on the 25th of April 2000 at the Royal Albert Hall, London, was a huge success. Grant Llewellyn conducted, and Julian Lloyd Webber featured as cello soloist. The premier recording was released the following year by Virgin Records, featuring the National Youth Choir of Great Britain (who also sung the premier in London), and this recording was re-released in 2019 by Decca. The Armed Man is a favourite of both professional and amateur choirs all around the world, and the work has been made into two films.

More Related Links

• Karl Jenkins – Sheet Music
• Masses for Peace – Sheet Music
• Spirituals & Gospel – Sheet Music
• Requiem – Sheet Music
• Songs for Peace – Sheet Music
• Spiritual Songs for Peace – Sheet Music
• Verdi’s Requiem – Sheet Music
• Mozart’s Requiem – Sheet Music
• Berlioz’ Grande Messe des Morts – Sheet Music
• Britten’s War Requiem – Sheet Music
• Tippett’s A Child for Our Time – Sheet Music