Cantata for symphony orchestra, mixed choirs and soloists
All detailed informations about Sir Karl Jenkins can be read here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Jenkins

This live recording of the Hungarian language premiére was made on 29 June 2012 at the Bartók Béla National Concert Hall (www.mupa.hu) in Budapest.
Featuring:
King Edward – Kiss B. Attila
Minstrel – Sárkány Kázmér
First bard – Kovács István
Second bard – Kertesi Ingrid
Third bard – Haja Zsolt

Kodály Choir of Debrecen (choirmaster – Pad Zoltán)
Cantemus Mixed Choir (choirmaster – Szabó Soma)
MÁV Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Takács-Nagy Gábor)


1./ King Edward scales the hills of Wales / Edward király, angol király 8:34
2./ He comes to high Montgomery / Montgomery a vár neve 5:34
3./ An ancient bard to rise / Ősz bárd emelkedik 3:27
4./ You are the guilty one! / Te tetted ezt, király! 3:33
5./ A breeze so soft / Lágyan kél az esti szél 3:20
6./ King beware! / No halld meg, Eduárd 6:45
7./ His men went forth / Szolgái szétszáguldanak 4:01
8./ The King can’t fall asleep / Király nem alhatik 2:30
9./ Those marthyredbards of Wales / Ötszáz énekli hangosan 6:05

10./ Arany János: The Bards of Wales / A walesi bárdok / Peter Zollman’s English translation recited by John Asquith 7:25
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Total: 51:20

Karl Jenkins is now the most performed contemporary composer in the world. His greatest hit album The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace alone has been performed nearly 1000 times in 20 countries since the CD was released, while the recorded output has resulted in 17 gold and platinum disc awards. He was born in Penclawdd, Wales in 1944 and educated at Gowerton Grammer School, Cardiff University and the Royal Academy of Music, London.
His style and integrity has transcended musical boundaries encompassing jazz-rock with Nucleus and Soft Machine, the global ’crossover’ phenomenon Adiemus, soundtrack for Levi’s and British Airways.
His recordings on EMI Classics include Requiem, Stabat Mater, Quirk, Stella Natalis and the choral work Peaemakers featuring texts from Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Anne Frank and Mother Teresa, as well as words from the Bible and the Qur'an with some new text specially written by Terry Waite.
His most recent work The Bards of Wales cantata was comissioned by CMI Concert Masters International and its director Laszló IRINYI.
Jenkins is a Doctor of Music, he holds fellowships, Honorary Doctorates and Professorships at many universities and conservatoires, including the Royal Academy of Music, London.

*****
János Arany (1817-1882) Hungary’s greatest epic port and most influential literary figure in the 19th century was born in Nagyszalonta (Salonta). He was a student at the Reformed College of Debrecen, a stronghold of Hungarian protestantism and culture.In his early years he worked as teacher, actor and newspaper aditor.
The years before the 1848-49 Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence were a happy period in his life. He established himself as a major poet, married and learnt enogh English to be able to read Shakespeare in the original and later he translated three dramas of Shakespeare into Hungarian.
He wrote one of his famous ballads, The Bards of Wales when the Emperor of Austria Franz Joseph visited Hungary for the first time after the defeat of the 1849-49 Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence and it was suggested that his visit should be commemorated by a verse. Arany was asked to write a poem of welcome on this festive occasion, but he created a dramatic refusal of this request instead, by telling a legend from medieval Welsh history.
Although doubted by historians, it is held in oral tradition, that King Edward of England executed500 Welsh bards after the first conquest of Wales in 1277, to prevent them inciting Welsh youth to rebellion throgh songs of the glorious past. The Bards of Wales ballad is a part of the Hungarian National Curriculum and is well known by all native Hungarians.
In the CD booklet beside the Hungarian language poem the English translation by Péter ZOLLMANN can be found, as well.



An article from Wales-Online:
A POEM to a legendary massacre of Welsh bards has long formed an unlikely classroom staple for generations of schoolchildren – in Hungary.
Janos Arany’s 19th century ballad The Bards of Wales has, for 150 years, told of the slaughter of 500 Welsh poets at the hands of Edward I.
And now, fittingly, one of Wales’ leading cultural figures is to transform the work for a modern Hungarian audience.
Karl Jenkins’ symphony, based on the poem, will receive its world premiere in Budapest’s Palace of Arts this summer with the MÁV Symphony Orchestra.
The composer, who will be conducting his own work, said: “I knew nothing about this poem 12 months ago. It’s written in Hungarian and all children in Hungary have to learn it at school.
“It’s very political, and is about King Edward’s invasion of Wales, crushing the Welsh rebels. They see it as analogous with their own suffering as part of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.
“Apparently it’s very popular in Hungary.”
According to the legend, King Edward I of England executed the bards for failing to sing his praises at a banquet in Montgomery Castle in 1277.
Parallels were drawn with an incident in 1857 when Emperor of Austria Franz Joseph toured Hungary and it was suggested that his visit should be commemorated by a verse.
Mr Jenkins added: “I’ve been commissioned to set this in three languages – it is an English piece but there will be Welsh and Hungarian versions.
“The idea is to do a double premiere – one in Budapest and one probably in the Llangollen Eisteddfod this year.
“It came as a great surprise to me because I, like many people in Wales, never knew that this poem existed.”
Arany was a well-liked poet who had translated Shakespeare but together with his fellow writers he refused to compose verses in praise of the head of a hated regime.
Instead he wrote the epic ballad A Walesi Bardok (The Bards of Wales) for private circulation, publishing it only in 1863, disguised as a translation of an old English ballad so it would bypass the Austrian censors.
Arany wrote his own preface to the poem: “The historians doubt it, but it strongly stands in the legend that Edward I of England sent 500 Welsh bards to the stake after his victory over the Welsh (1277) to prevent them from arousing the country and destroying English rule by telling of the glorious past of their nation.”
From 1867 the Austrian Empire was transformed into Austria-Hungary with Hungarians as a “partner” nation instead of a subject people.
After World War I The Bards of Wales became widely known in the independent state of Hungary, which lost two thirds of its territory with the break-up of the empire.
Gyorgyi Kocsis, deputy editor- in-chief of Hungarian political magazine HVG, said: “If you ask any Hungarian about Wales the first thing that comes to mind will be a poem by one of our most respected writers, Janos Arany, who lived in the 19th century.
“The poem is known as The Bards of Wales and everybody learns it in school by heart.”
“The poem talks about the suppression of Hungary by Austria, but it’s written in a coded language so that it appears to be about the Welsh rebellion against King Edward I.
“But generally Hungarians regard all British people as English.”
In 2007 an English copy of the poem, translated by Peter Zollman, was donated to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.