Karl Jenkins: The Armed Man (Ensemble Version)

Hertfordshire Chorus, David Temple & London Orchestra da Camera

Released on 2024-01-12 by Signum Records
Main artists: Hertfordshire Chorus David Temple London Orchestra da Camera
Genre: Chamber Music

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The Armed Man helped put composer Karl Jenkins on the map when it appeared in the year 2000; Jenkins has devoted several recordings to it, and it has been performed hundreds of times in Britain by choirs, great and small. The work is a kind of mass, with no Gloria or Credo but with many interpolated texts of various kinds, including an Islamic call to prayer. It was commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds and dedicated to the victims of war in Kosovo. In the manner of the Renaissance masses that used the tune numerous times, the work is based on a medieval song called L'homme armé ("The Armed Man"). This, more than anything else, is what accounts for the work's power; for all the modern eclecticism, the work seems rooted in the distant past with its ominous warning that "the armed man is to be feared." Jenkins has picked up the work's antiwar themes in various later works, some of them ambitious and even grandiose. However, in the score here, designated an "ensemble version," he goes in the opposite direction, scaling the work down "as an alternative version where performances of the full symphonic version are not possible." This is the first recording of the new version. The basic stuff of the music is there, and the winds and brass in the big climaxes are altered only slightly; it is the rest of the orchestration that is simplified. Listeners will have their own opinions about this, of course, but it is likely that this recording will bring Jenkins' work new performances, and goodness knows, its relevance is undiminished. Conductor David Temple, the Hertfordshire Chorus, the London Orchestra da Camera, and a fine group of soloists take naturally to this conception of the work; the orchestra's brass replace volume with incisive precision, and the impact of the music's climaxes is undiminished. This recording can be recommended even to those who have earlier versions in their collections.

© James Manheim /TiVo

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Karl Jenkins: The Armed Man (Ensemble Version)

Hertfordshire Chorus

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