Karl Jenkins : Benedictus

A movement from The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace from Adiemus composer Karl Jenkins. Recently performed by Hayley Westenra on her best-selling album Pure.

In recent years Karl Jenkins has become one of the world's best-selling living composers. He continues to conduct his epic Adiemus Live Concerts with distinguished orchestras including the London Philharmonic featuring in Festivals and concerts in Britain and abroad; and his moving choral work The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace is now firmly lodged as a concert favourite. This new work builds on the style which the British public have come to know and adore. Jenkins has set the usual Latin movements of the requiem mass but in keeping with his usual trait of drawing from other cultures he has also set five Japanese haiku ‘death’ poems. Such poems are usually to dowith nature have a single idea and consist of seventeen syllables divided 5-7-5 over three lines. As one can see from the text the Japanese view nature’s water cycle (precipitation) as being synonymous with life. The Western and Eastern texts are combined in two of the haiku movements Having Seen The Moon and Farewell which incorporate the Benedictus and the Agnus Dei respectively. Both are intoned by male voices in a monastic style as a counterpoint to the Japanese text sung by females. The instrumentation of these haiku settings includes the ancient Japanese wind instrument the shakuhachi. Elsewhere as usual Jenkins has used some ethnic drums (e.g. Arabic darabuca Japanese daiko frame drums) and even a hip-hop rhythm in the Dies Irae!

Organ score-Sacred Songs brings together the most famous and beautiful movements from the composer of Adiemus. This collection includes pieces from The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace Requiem and Stabat Mater. Included are Benedictus (The Armed Man) Pie Jesu In Paradisum (Requiem) and Virgo Virginum (Stabat Mater). All the pieces can be performed together or performers can make up their own suite of favourites from those in this volume. Orchestral material is available on hire.

The Piano Player: Classical Tear-Jerkers presents 20 of the saddest pieces of classical music, guaranteed to make you weep, specially arranged for intermediate solo piano. Contents include Un bel di vedremo from ?Madam Butterfly? by Puccini Parry and Dido?s Lament by Purcell. The striking cover features Edward Bawden?s colour linocut Aesop?s Fables: The Ant and the Grasshopper, 1970, and a 4-page pullout provides the full artwork as a beautiful collectible. The Piano Player series includes six wonderful collections of some of the greatest classical music ever written, specially arranged for the intermediate pianist, each with its own collectible pull-out poster of the stunning Edward Bawden cover artwork.