Karl Jenkins: Benedictus featured in BBC Radio 4’s Soul Music
The consoling Benedictus movement from Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace is under the spotlight in the latest episode in BBC Radio 4’s Soul Music series, exploring how music can deeply affect the lives of individuals across the world.
Karl Jenkins' Benedictus is the penultimate movement from his anti-war mass, The Armed Man. Premiered in 2000 and performed over 3000 times since, Jenkins dedicated the work to the victims of the 1998-99 Kosovo war. It was originally commissioned by The Royal Armouries Museum and premiered for the millennium.
The Benedictus is the music under the spotlight in the latest episode of BBC Radio 4’s series Soul Music, with powerful testimony how this piece has moved and consoled individuals faced with adversity in their working and personal lives. The programme, first broadcast on 9 November 2024, is now available for listening on the BBC Sounds website.
The Armed Man as a whole reflects the descent into war, but the Benedictus movement emerges as a message of hope and peace in the aftermath. Benedictus is recognised for its haunting cello theme, in a register unusually high for this resonant instrument. The cello solo gradually expands with the music taken up by full choir and orchestra.
Benedictus has given solace to listeners through some of the most difficult moments of their lives. The programme features British Armed Forces veteran Michael Young, who served in Kosovo, Iraq and in Afghanistan on unexploded weapons clearance, the Reverend Charles Thody, working as a priest in Lincolnshire and as a chaplain for the NHS during the COVID crisis, and cellist Dane Coetzee who performed the work in Cape Town, South Africa. Explaining the genesis and message of the Benedictus is composer Karl Jenkins, together with his wife Carol Barratt.
> Read comments about the programme on the Karl Jenkins Facebook page
As well as being the 25th anniversary of the premiere of The Armed Man, 2025 brings a focus on peace after war with the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1945. Jenkins performances in 2025 are launched with the North American premiere of his latest work for choir and orchestra, One World, presented by Distinguished Concerts International New York at Carnegie Hall on 20 January, coupled with the composer’s setting of the Gloria, conducted by Jonathan Griffith.
> Further information on Work: The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace (full orchestra version)
Photo: Rhys Frampton
