Magna Invocatio – Composition inspired by the Great Invocation
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- free download of First Movement for friends of Lucis Trust - |
The musician and composer, Jaz Coleman, has kindly dedicated his latest composition, Magna Invocatio, to the Lucis Trust. Recorded by the St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra and Choir, Magna Invocatio, consists of 15 movements, 5 with choir. The first movement, The Absolute Descent of Light, is a choral fanfare featuring the first verse of the Great Invocation sung in Latin. Jaz Coleman has offered to make this movement available, without charge, to friends of the Lucis Trust. It can be downloaded here.
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Wikipedia describes Jaz Coleman as “an English-born New Zealand musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer. He came to prominence in the early 1980s as the lead vocalist and occasional keyboardist of post-punk group, Killing Joke.” As a classical composer and conductor, Jaz has worked with some of the world’s leading orchestras. The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London have commissioned two works, including an opera, The Marriage at Cana. German conductor, Klaus Tennstedt, has described Coleman as a new Mahler. He is Composer in Residence with the St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra.
In the sleevenotes of the CD describing his various sources of inspiration for the work Magna Invocatio, Jaz notes:
The all-important Aquarian themes of the brotherhood and sisterhood of man have not been adequately addressed or developed in any meaningful way since Beethoven utilized the genius of Schiller’s masterpiece Ode to Joy in the glorious 9th symphony. Consequently, I chose a large instrumentation.
Additionally, the music had to reach out to people who do not normally listen to orchestral music; to these ends, neo-romanticism seemed appropriate (i.e. to emphasize the post-modernist use of resolving dissonance and perpetual melody).
Another consideration was that of a vastly reduced attention span in the 21st century. The laws that applied to the popularization of Wagner’s Ring cycle would not work in the modern age because of this affliction, therefore the work had to consist of 13 digestible epics (5 of which would be with choir!).
My sincere and perhaps naïve aspiration with the entire work was to lift the listener up and away from the traumas of our world to another dimension, a more desirable reality where positivity and possibility, agape and interconnectedness take precedence. The end goal was always to bring magic into the listener’s life in some meaningful way.
While this is a classical composition it draws on earlier arrangements and some of the more melodic and uplifting songs from Coleman’s punk rock group Killing Joke. In addition to the Latin translation of the Great Invocation, the work includes text from a Rosicrucian prayer (May our minds be open to the highest); an ancient Sumerian prayer; and the song Into the Unknown.