You may have noticed that I rarely make musical recommendations. I like what I like and you can take it or leave it; my tastes refuse to be pigeon-holed. I am making a rare exception, I would really really recommend Karl Jenkins The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace which is excellently reviewed here
Here is the Official site - note the release date.
Update: Looking back, I realise - note the time - I didn't convey what I really wanted to. This is an amazing musical work, containing some marvellous tunes. The libretto is eclectic, sourced from the common of the mass, the Bible, the moslem call to prayers, Kipling, Dryden, Swift, Togi Sankichi (a poet from hiroshima who died in 1953 of leukemia), the Mahabharata, the memories of WW1 survivors, Malory and Tennyson. There is a narrative running through, the build up to war, the destruction of war, finishing with a glorious "Better Is Peace" , with words taken largely from Tennyson's In Memorium AHH.
The music was composed during the Kosovo conflict, and is dedicated to the victims of Kosovo.
The CD was released on 10th September 2001, which, to me makes it achingly poignant, and even more urgently necessary.
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife,
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweet manners, purer laws.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
