Musical message of peace

BY WENDY ELLIOTT

Kings County Register

The Acadia Chorus and the Kings Chorale will present special music for Remembrance Day Nov. 9.

The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace will be performed at 3 p.m. at the Festival Theatre, Wolfville

The Armed Man is by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins and will be conducted by Michael Caines, featuring the Acadia String Ensemble and members of Scotia Brass. Over 200 musicians will fill the stage.

Caines says the impetus of this production occurred during rehearsals for another joint performance. Last spring, before Carmina Burana was a sold-out event, he and Kings Chorale conductor Bill Perrot decided they were both keen on Jenkin’s work.

“I first heard it in Carnegie Hall early in 2007,” recalls Caines, “and I really enjoyed it. The work is accessible and tuneful.”

While driving to Halifax earlier in the year, Caines heard the mass on CBC Radio and thought it would be perfect for the chorus.

Commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds for the millennium celebrations, The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace was dedicated to victims of the Kosovo crisis. It is based on the Christian Mass, combined with a beautiful and poignant work that details the struggles and trials of war and, in Caine’s opinion, expresses the ultimate hope of humanity: peace.

Like Benjamin Britten's earlier War Requiem, this mass is essentially an anti-war piece, based on the Christian Mass which he combines with other sources, principally the 15th Century folk song L'homme armé.

The text includes words from the Islamic call to prayer, the Bible, the Ordinary of the Mass, authors such as Rudyard Kipling and Alfred Lord Tennyson, as well as a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing.

The piece begins with a representation of marching feet, overlaid later by the shrill tones of a piccolo emulating the flutes of a military band. It stirs images of the Napoleonic wars, of "Redcoats" and war being glorious. The Sanctus seems to continue this theme, as God is praised even as we proceed into war. Kipling's Hymn before Action stirs the listener much as Roman gladiators would with their "We, who are about to die, salute you, Caesar." Then the charge, with blaring trumpets and crashing drums, ending in the agonized screams of the dying. This is followed by an eerie silence, broken by the evocative sound of a lone trumpet playing the Last Post.

Tickets are on sale now: $15 for adults and $10 for students, seniors and veterans; at the Acadia box office, 542-5500.