Background

Jazz oboe—that sounds like a contradiction in terms, doesn’t it?  But Karl Jenkins (that’s “Sir Karl” to his friends) is the person who basically made it a “thing.”  Check out his picture online—this is one cool-looking 81-year-old dude, with a full head of unruly white hair and a serious ‘stache.  He definitely looks like someone who’s had an interesting life.

His father was an organist and choirmaster, so Jenkins came by his musical interests naturally.  After training at Cardiff University and then the Royal Academy of Music, his professional career has included substantial jazz and jazz fusion work (on sax and other instruments as well as oboe) but he is equally at home in classical music, TV, film, commercial advertising, and so on, and, not surprisingly, he has composed in multiple styles and genres.  Works you are most likely to run across include Palladio, the song Adiemus, a Stabat Mater and a Requiem.  He’s a Commander of the British Empire, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, and an honorary Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (these are just a few of his honors); his music was performed at the King’s coronation.  Whew!

The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace is his best-known work, it premiered in 2000 (Jenkins conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain) and was the result of a commission from the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, England, to commemorate the millennium.  The museum houses the National Collection of Arms and Armour, previously held at the Tower of London, and there’s actually a Peace Gallery within the Museum.  One can always hope.  The mass is dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo War between the Serbians and the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, which lasted from February 1998 to June 1999.

The mass has had more than 3000 performances world-wide.  In 2018, to mark the centennial of the end of the first World War, a performance in Berlin featured a choir of 2000 from 30 countries.  You can watch this on YouTube; it’s a staggering sight. For a sing-along if you’re learning the music, though, I’d recommend the premiere recording (also on YouTube). Would it break your heart to know the release date for the recording was 10 September 2001?

L’homme armé

The musical impetus for the mass was a fifteenth-century melody known as L’homme armé, the armed man.  The song may have come from an unwritten tradition or it may have been a composed work; in the sixteenth century, one writer claimed that Antoine Busnoys (d. 1492) was the author; another credited it to Johannes Ockeghem (d. 1497).  The tune is a catchy one, with its ABA formal structure, leaps of fourths and fifths, and a cresting high A in the middle.  The basic version (there are numerous variants) is built on a G home pitch, sometimes heard with a B-flat and sometimes with a B-natural.  Jenkins uses both versions in his mass.

The melody is most famous for serving as the basic material for more than 30 masses.  In the fifteenth century, composers regularly created polyphonic settings of five of the Ordinary texts of the mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus, each of which could be subdivided (for a short history of the mass, see the entry for Bach’s Mass in b minor.  While the Kyrie and Gloria were adjacent during celebration of the mass, the other movements were separated (by prayers, readings, and so on; these were all sung in plainchant), so composers found ways to unify the polyphonic material.  Very frequently this meant building the mass on a melody (either a piece of plainchant or a secular tune) that was used at least once in every movement of the mass.  We now identify such unified masses by their borrowed material, e.g. Missa L’homme armé.

Why did so many people write masses based on L’homme armé?  Aside from the catchiness of the tune, in at least some instances composers were trying to outdo each other by their cleverness in treating the melody.  And we also assume that the “armed man” text meant something to listeners, but we can’t agree on what.  Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, and Europe felt threatened.  Is the armed man the Turk?  Does the armed man represent the militant Christ?  Is the armed man connected to the chivalric order of the Golden Fleece?  Is he the soldier Longinus, present at the crucifixion, who pierced Christ’s side with his lance?  Did the first mass mark the end of the Hundred Year’s War?  Is there some connection with the war-loving Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold?  Or his great-grandson Emperor Charles V?  These are just some of the explanations offered for the popularity, use, and significance of this model.

The list below gives composers of L’homme armé masses, with interesting tidbits about some of them.  But if you don’t feel like reading about 39 different masses, you can skip directly to the following section, which discusses Jenkins’s work specifically.

The subdivisions below are based largely on the L’homme armé article by David Fallows in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.  Scholars disagree as to who wrote the first mass, as well as the datings of individual masses.

Masses probably from the 1450s

• Guillaume Dufay (d. 1474), mass for 4 voices
• Johannes Ockeghem (d. 1497), 4 voices
  In the 17th century, this was said to be the first L’homme armé mass.  Composers often do something special for the end of the mass.  In this mass, Ockeghem puts the melody in the bass voice in the Agnus rather than the more usual tenor. 
• Guillaume Faugues (fl. ca. 1460–1475), 4 voices
  Faugues places the melody in canon in the two middle voices; he is evidently the first to recognize the canonic potential of the tune.  A second version of the mass appears to be a revision by Johannes Martini (d. 1497/1498).  The tune is on D rather than G.
• Johannes Regis (d. ca. 1496), 4 voices
  Regis wrote two L’homme armé masses (the first to do so); only one survives.  This one also uses texts and melodies from the office of St. Michael, emphasizing the warrior element of L’homme armé.  The tune is on D.
• Antoine Busnoys (d. 1492),  4 voices
  Some think this is the first L’homme armé mass; it was certainly influential.  Obrecht modelled his L’homme armé mass directly on Busnoys, and an anonymous mass for St. John the Baptist (probably by Obrecht) is also derived from Busnoys’s mass.

Masses probably before 1475

• Firminus Caron (fl ca. 1460–1475), 4 voices
• Johannes Tinctoris (d. 1511), 4 voices
  The Kyrie, Sanctus, and Osanna all use troped texts (texts with words added to the basic mass Ordinary text).
• 6 Naples Masses, the first five for 4 voices, with the last mass for 5 voices
  A fifteenth-century manuscript in Naples, owned by the noble Janly family (with connections to Burgundian Duke Charles the Bold) contains six related anonymous masses based on L’homme armé, probably but not necessarily written by the same composer.  The first five use successive portions of the tune, treating it in multiple ways, e.g., as is, in inversion (upside down), in retrograde (backwards), in retrograde inversion (upside down and backwards, because why not?).  The full melody appears only in the final mass, in two-voice canon at the fifth.  Each mass has a different tonal scheme, and each uses troped texts filled with classical allusions.  Clearly, someone was showing off.

Masses probably from the last quarter of the 15th Century

• Philippe Basiron (d. 1491), 4 voices
• Antoine Brumel (d. 1512/1513?), for 4 voices
• Loyset Compère (d. 1518), 4 voices
  Compère puts the tune in Phrygian and includes canons at odd intervals, e.g. 2nd, 9th.
• Franchinus Gaffurius (1451–1522); this mass is lost.
• Jacob Obrecht  (1457/1458–1505), 4 voices
  This mass is closely modelled on that by Busnoys, with the tune now in Phrygian.
• Marbriano de Orto (d. 1529), 4 voices
  One can hear the melody not just in the expected tenor but in every voice at one point or another.  By the final Agnus, it has migrated to the top voice so that no one can miss the famous tune.
• Bertrandus Vaqueras (d. by 21 April 1507), 5 voices
• Josquin Desprez (d. 1521)
  Josquin wrote two L’homme armé masses, both for four voices, that are (deservedly) among the most famous of the complex.  In his Missa L’homme armé super voces musicales, the tune is placed on different, ever higher pitches as the mass progresses: C in the Kyrie, D in the Gloria, E in the Credo, F in the Sanctus, G in the first Agnus, and A in the final Agnus (this final Agnus is just plain drop-dead gorgeous; check out the Tallis Scholars recording).  The Gloria and Credo also feature repeats of the melody in retrograde, and other fancy techniques are used in the mass.  In contrast, Josquin’s Missa L’homme armé sexti toni places the melody on one pitch throughout, but on F (sexti toni) rather than the expected G.  It saves its tour de force for the final Agnus, where the texture expands to six voices and includes two canons (at the minim and unison) above simultaneous long-note retrograde and forward motion versions of the melody—a staggering achievement.

Masses probably from the early 16th Century

• Vitalis Venedier (fl. ca. 1500), 4 voices
  Only two of the original four voices of this mass survive.
• Mathurin Forestier (fl. ca. 1500-1535), 5 voices
  Forestier shows off his contrapuntal prowess throughout.  For most of the mass (sometimes incorrectly attributed to Jean Mouton, d. 1522), two voices are canonic (using the tune) and three are free. The Osanna moves to six voices (three free, three canonic), and by the time we get to the final Agnus, we have seven voices, all based on the melody in canon.
• Matthaeus Pipelare (d. ca. 1515), 4 voices
  This is a mass that was written for low voices; the highest voice is in the tenor range.  The final Agnus adds a fifth voice—a second bass voice—to an already low-lying texture.  The tune is on D.
• Pierre de la Rue (d. 1518)
  La Rue is another composer who created two L’homme armé masses, each for four voices.  In one mass, a two-voice canon is the foundation for each movement, and the last movement expands to five voices.  The other mass is one of the most exciting L’homme armé masses out there (the recording by Ensemble Clément Janequin is superb).  Here La Rue treats the tune with great freedom and scatters it across the voices throughout the mass, so that the listener is totally immersed in L’homme armé.  As a treat, La Rue creates a four-voice canon on the melody in the second Agnus. It is that rare creature, a mensuration canon, where the melody is written exactly once and each voice part then applies a different mensuration (the pre-1600 quasi-equivalent of a meter signature) to the tune.  Amazing!
• Ludwig Senfl (d. 1542/43), 4 voices
  Senfl puts the melody in Phrygian, but on A rather than the expected E.  He also combines the melody with various bits of plainchant throughout, usually in long notes in the top voice.  In the first Agnus, however, the L’homme armé tune appears in the highest and lowest voices.  By the final Agnus, it is confined to the bass voice only.
• Robert Carver (d. after 1567), 4 voices
  The Scottish Carver is the only composer from Britain to tackle the famous tune.

Masses from the Later 16th Century and Beyond

Most of these later masses are from Spain, but Italy is also represented.

• Cristóbal de Morales (d. 1553)
  Morales wrote two L’homme armé masses, one for five voices published in 1540 (with the tune in mode 6, like Josquin) and the other for four voices published in 1544.
• Diego Ortiz (d. ca. 1570)
  Ortiz’s mass has been lost.
• Juan de Peñalosa (d. 1579), 4 voices
• Francisco Guerrero (1528–1599)
  Guerrero’s mass exists in two versions, both for four voices; the tune is on F.  The earlier one appears to be a student work; the later one, an extensive revision of the earlier piece, represents his mature style.
• Giovenni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525/1526–1594)
  Palestrina is another composer with two L’homme armé masses, a five-work work published in 1570, and a four-voice piece (with the tune on D) printed in 1582.

And the last mass before modern times is attributed to Giacomo Carissimi (1605–1674), but was probably written by someone else.  The original version is for twelve voices (three four-voice choirs); it was later revised for sixteen voices.  The melody is always in the bass voice, and is on C.

In addition to being used as the starting point for these polyphonic masses, the L’homme armé melody also pops up as part of combinative chansons, art-song reworkings, at least one “Missa carminum” built on famous tunes, works for instrumental ensembles, and other Renaissance compositions.  Then, after being forgotten for a few centuries, the song was rediscovered as musicologists began to explore the past, and it has now turned up in pieces by modern composers such as Peter Maxwell Davies, Louis Andriessen, Frederic Rzewski, and Karl Jenkins, which brings us back to The Armed Man.

The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace

Jenkins’s mass is published by the prestigious firm of Boosey & Hawkes.  It is written for SATB choir (with occasional splitting of S and A parts, plus the tenor line becomes two separate parts for the Christe), SATB solos, muezzin, and a full orchestra with a massive percussion section.  Since most choruses do not have a full orchestra at their disposal, Jenkins has wisely arranged a version using smaller instrumental forces plus a version using brass band, as well as a five-movement suite.  Not surprisingly, given their centuries-long connection with the military, trumpets and drums play a key role in multiple movements of this anti-war mass.

The Armed Man fits nicely into the tradition of major British anti-war works.  In the 1930s we had the Dona nobis pacem by Vaughan Williams, the 1960s saw Britten’s War Requiem, and this is from the 1990s.  While each of these is a different genre (cantata, Requiem, mass), each combines different but related texts by more than one author in more than one language, with Jenkins’s work being the most heterogeneous in its construction.  Jenkins does an excellent job of matching different musical moods to the different texts; recently, when I was singing along with the piece on YouTube, my brother thought each movement was a different work.

The formal “Mass” component of the work includes the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus, eliminating the usual Gloria (inappropriately joyful) and Credo (as a statement of Catholic faith, also inappropriate for this work).  As is often the case, the Sanctus is split into the Sanctus section (Sanctus, Pleni, Osanna) and the Benedictus section (Benedictus, Osanna), but what is highly unusual is that the Benedictus appears after the Agnus rather than before.

In contrast to Vaughan Williams’s Dona nobis pacem, and in huge contrast to the War Requiem, this work is actually fairly easy to sing.  I realize that I have an advantage in already knowing the L’homme armé melody, but most of the choral writing is homophonic rather than contrapuntal (sometimes only a single voice part is singing), harmonies are mostly diatonic with some light chromaticism thrown in, text underlay is overwhelmingly syllabic, rhythm and phrasing are normally straightforward, none of the meters are weird, melodies eschew awkward leaps, vocal ranges are reasonable (usually), and there’s a decent amount of time off for vocal rest within the work.  Plus there’s lots and lots of internal repetition within individual movements.  Simple means notwithstanding, this is an incredibly effective piece.  And unfortunately the need for its anti-war message appears to be eternal.

1. The Armed Man

The opening of the mass proclaims its militaristic connections: in addition to percussion, there’s the piccolo that represents the fife of the traditional fife and drum corps associated with armies.  We sing the famous L’homme armé melody (the minor-sounding version with B-flat) multiple times in multiple ways: in octaves, in harmonization, and in imitation.

L’homme armé doit on douter.
On a fait partout crier
que chacun se viegne armer
d’un haubregon de fer.
L’homme armé doit on douter.

The armed man should be feared.
Everywhere it has been proclaimed
that each man should arm himself
with an iron coat of mail.
The armed man should be feared.

2. Call to Prayers: Adhaan

Choir and orchestra are silent in this movement, which is intended for performance by a muezzin.  A muezzin is a professional “caller” who gives the Adhaan (also spelled Adhan), the Islamic call to prayer.  This is traditionally done from a minaret at the top of a mosque.  Observant Muslims pray five times daily, so the muezzin provides an important service to the faithful.  Many of the ethnic Albanians slaughtered by the Serbs in Kosovo were Muslim.

Allahu Akbar
Ashhadu An La Illa-L-Lah
Ashhadu Anna Muhammadan Rasulullah
Hayya Ala-s-salah
Hayya Ala-l-Falah
Allahu Akbar
La Illaha il la-lah

God is the greatest.
I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except God.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
Hasten to prayer.
Hasten to salvation.
God is the greatest.
There is none worthy of worship except God.

3. Kyrie

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.

The tripartite nature of the Kyrie text is mirrored in the tripartite music for this movement.  The two Kyrie sections make passing references to the L’homme armé tune.  In contrast, the Christe is a direct steal from Palestrina’s five-voice mass (which Jenkins acknowledges with an “after Palestrina” indication in the score), and thus pure sixteenth-century modal counterpoint.

4. Save Me from Bloody Men

The two psalm verses of this movement are sung in unison, a cappella, by tenors and basses.  The shifting meters are used to generate the fluidity of the chant-like melody. 

Psalm 56:1
Be merciful unto me, O God:
For man would swallow me up.
He fighting daily oppresseth me.
Mine enemies would daily swallow me up.
For they be many that fight against men.
O thou Most High.

Psalm 59:2
Defend me from them that rise up against me.
Deliver me from the workers of iniquity,
And save me from bloody men.

5. Sanctus

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts.
Heaven and earth are filled with thy glory.
Hosanna in the highest.

The music of the Pleni (P) section is a variant of the opening Sanctus (S), soft and in d minor.  The Hosanna (O) is a brash contrast with its forte dynamics and dramatic minor/major chord shifts.  Jenkins repeats text and music seemingly at random for a formal structure of SPOPOS. 

6. Hymn before Action

The subdued ending of the Sanctus gives way to a fulsome brashness that sounds like movie music in an appropriate rendition of the text.  Author Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was born in India and spent significant time there as an adult, starting his extremely successful literary career there.  He was the first English writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1907), and he declined both a knighthood and the opportunity to serve as England’s Poet Laureate.  He is buried in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.  It’s likely that you have read some of his books or short stories as a child or later in life.  Well-known titles include The Jungle Book, Kim, Just So Stories, Captains Courageous, The Light that Failed, Wee Willie Winkie, and The Phantom Rickshaw, along with famous poems such as If, Mandalay, Gunga Din, and The White Man’s Burden (ugh).  This last poem exemplifies why Kipling is not nearly as popular as he was a century ago, since his writings wholeheartedly embrace an imperialist British viewpoint.

The earth is full of anger,
The seas are dark with wrath,
The Nations in their harness
Go up against our path:
Ere yet we loose the legions
Ere yet we draw the blade,
Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, aid!

High lust and froward bearing,
Proud heart, rebellious brow
Deaf ear and soul uncaring,
We seek Thy mercy now!
The sinner that forswore Thee,
The fool that passed Thee by,
Our times are known before Thee
Lord, grant us strength to die!

7. Charge!

This terrific movement opens with an extended instrumental introduction of brass fanfares before alternating between two texts.  The first text comes from the third stanza of A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, from 1687, by John Dryden (1631–1700), England’s first poet laureate.  Given that St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music, this is a rather bombastic text (in fairness, different stanzas emphasize different instruments, e.g. flute in stanza 4, violins in 5).

The trumpet’s loud clangor
excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger,
and mortal alarms.

The double, double beat
Of the thund’ring drum
Cries, Hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, ‘tis too late to retreat.

The second text has a bit of a history behind it.  The “original” text is “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” which is the thirteenth line of the second ode of Book 3 by Roman lyric poet Horace (65 BCE–8 BCE).  Irish clergyman and satiric writer Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) paraphrased this ode in his poem addressed “To the Earl of Oxford, late Lord Treasurer, sent to him when in the Tower,” where the “dulce et decorum” line opens the poem as “How blest is he for who his country dies.”  This line is entrusted to three-part women’s chorus; I’m sure the first sopranos are not too crazy about the repeated high As in this segment.  The movement is thus laid out as

The trumpet’s long clangor…
How blest is he…
The double, double beat…
How blest is he…
The double, double beat…

And then we all have an aleatoric scream of horror followed by a long silence and then a final trumpet call, “The Last Post.”  This grim finale is all too fitting as the introduction to the next movement.

8. Angry Flames

The searing text for this movement comes from Japanese poet Toge Sankichi  (1917–1953), who survived the bombing of Hiroshima but ultimately succumbed to the cancer the radiation exposure caused.  This is mostly sung by soloists, with just a few choral interjections.

Pushing up through smoke
From a world half darkened
by overhanging cloud.
The shroud that mushroomed out
And struck the dome of the sky,
Black, red, blue,
Dance in the air,
Merge, scatter glittering sparks already
tower over the whole city.
Quivering like seaweed
The mass of flames spurts forward.
Popping up in the dense smoke,
Crawling out wreathed in fire,
Countless human beings on all fours
In a heap of embers that erupt and subside,
Hair rent, rigid in death,
There smoulders a curse.

9. Torches

The somber mood of the previous movement continues here.  The choice of text shows that the stupidity of war is apparently everlasting, as the words come from the Mahàbhàrata, a Sanskrit epic of ancient India that tells the story of the Kurukshetra War of succession between two princes (it also includes various philosophical writings).  The author is traditionally said to be the sage Vyasa, who is also a character in the epic, but this is a little like saying that Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey.  The epic was compiled over many centuries, possibly beginning 400 years (or even more) BCE.

The animals scattered in all directions, screaming terrible screams.
Many were burning, others were burnt.
All were shattered and scattered mindlessly, their eyes bulging.
Some hugged their sons, others their fathers
and mothers, unable to let them go,
and so they died.
Others leapt up in their thousands, faces
disfigured and were consumed by the fire,
everywhere bodies squirming on the ground, wings, eyes and paws all burning.
They breathed their last as living torches.

10. Agnus Dei

Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

This is one of the sections of the mass that has taken on an independent existence.  This slow and gentle plea for mercy and peace never rises above an mp dynamic and moves appropriately from the opening a minor to the warmer C Major, leaving room for hope and optimism.

11. Now the Guns Have Stopped

This short movement for solo female voice on a common aftermath of war has a text written by Guy Wilson.  Wilson (b. 1950), a British military historian, was Master of the Royal Armouries from 1988 to 2002 and thus the impetus behind the whole Armed Man mass.

Silent, so silent now,
Now the guns have stopped.
I have survived all,
I who knew I would not.
But now you are not here.
I shall go home, alone;
And must try to live life as before
And hide my grief.
For you, my dearest friend, who should be with me now,
Not cold, too soon,
And in your grave,
Alone.

12.  Benedictus

Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest.

This is another movement with a deserved independent existence.  It’s slow, in a clear D Major, and opens with a long cello solo that presents the main melody the choir will sing shortly (maybe the opening solo is a little too long? Or am I a grinch to say that?).  In any event, this is an extremely attractive movement that most will find very moving.

13. Better is Peace

Jenkins ends the mass by combining four different texts and three different kinds of music.  The opening text comes from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.  This is a very famous Middle English retelling of the Arthurian legends: Camelot, the mythical King Arthur, the wizard Merlin, Arthur’s chivalric Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot (the greatest of the knights, and Arthur’s close friend), Arthur’s wife Guinevere, and so on.  But no place is without problems, and one of the biggest was the adulterous affair between Lancelot and Guinevere.  But at least those two conflicted souls agree on the sentiment shared in the first text of the movement:

Better is peace than always war,
And better is peace than evermore war
And better and better is peace
Better is peace than always war.

This is sung to the L’homme armé melody (now in the more cheerful major-sounding version with B-natural); that tune returns with the original words after a swirling instrumental interlude that sounds like a Celtic dance.  Then it’s back to “Better is peace” and more Celtic cheer before we move on the third text of the movement. 

This one is by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), yet another Poet Laureate of Britain.  You may know (or know of) some of his poems such as The Charge of the Light Brigade, Crossing the Bar, Idylls of the King (on Arthurian legends), The Lady of Shalott, Locksley Hall, and Tears, Idle Tears.  The text that Jenkins uses, comes from a much (much, much) longer work, In Memoriam A.H.H., which appeared in 1850, the year Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate.  The A.H.H of the poem is Arthur Henry Hallam, Tennyson’s close friend and his sister’s fiancé, who died in 1833 at the age of 22.  Seventeen years to write a memorial poem seems a bit extreme, but get this: the poem is almost 3000 lines long, written in 133 cantos.

Jenkins uses parts of Canto 104, Ring out, wild bells, which has 8 stanzas.  He starts with lines 3 and 4 of Stanza 7, then all of Stanzas 2, 7, and 8, and then closes with lines 3 and 4 of Stanza 2.

Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

All of this is preceded, followed, and interspersed with various ring, rings meant to sound like bells.  All very joyous and wonderful—what a great way to end the piece!

Except that he’s not done.  We’ve got one more text to sing, taken from the fourth verse of Chapter 21 of the last book of the Bible (“The Revelation of St. John the Divine” in my Protestant Bible; “The Apocalypse of St. John the Apostle” in my Catholic Bible).

God shall wipe away all tears
And there shall be no more death,
Neither sorrow nor crying,
Neither shall there be any more pain.
Praise the Lord.

In a huge switch from the preceding section, the choir now sings this text, with a largo tempo indication, in an unaccompanied chorale-like setting.  To be honest, I have very mixed feelings about this final part.  Aside from the fact that it is a massive change of pace from what we’ve just sung, the slow tempo, lack of accompaniment, and frequent use of descending melodic lines sounds like a recipe for sinking pitch and less than flawless intonation.  Maybe I’ll feel more positive about this by the time I finally perform it in concert; as I write this, there’s a little over a month before the big day.  Or maybe my musical taste is just hopelessly shallow and I prefer the dash and sparkle of all those ring, rings.

Wouldn’t it be great, though, if around the world on New Year’s Eve hundreds, thousands of choirs sang this work and thousands, millions of people listened to it and took its message to heart?

June 2025