Composer
Karl Jenkins
may not save the world, but it won't be for lack of trying.
Jenkins
gained wide publicity in the late '90s during the Balkan War with
The Armed Man
, a vast structure expanding upon the Renaissance tune of the same name ("
L'homme arme
). Here, in a choral work commissioned by
World Choir for Peace
director
Nicol Matt
, he returns to the peace theme, joined by top-flight soloists and on a couple of numbers by the
Stay at Home Choir
birthed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Technically, this is one of
' stronger compositions. He draws on a true miscellany of texts, including the Bible, the Hindu Gayatri Mantra, the poetry of the English Romantic poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley
, African American abolitionist and suffragist poet
Frances Harper
(c.1850), and Lebanese American writer, poet, and artist
Kahlil Gibran
, with languages that include Japanese, Latin, English, and Hebrew. The latter appears in a Jewish prayer called Tikkun Olam ("Repair the World") that recurs instrumentally later in the composition.
knits these diverse materials together into a reasonably coherent whole, and if that isn't at least a somewhat encouraging prospect for world peace, it at least testifies to the possibility of communication.
Matt
keeps good control over his varied forces, and beyond
' contribution, this is a landmark for the
World Orchestra of Peace
, which was founded by
Sir Georg Solti
in 1995. The album made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2023. ~ James Manheim