This work is a powerful and compelling account of the descent into war and its terrible consequences. It is dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo crisis. Like Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, it is essentially an anti-war piece and is based on the Catholic Mass combined with other sources, principally the 15th-century folk song L'homme armé in the first and last movements. It was written for chorus with soloists (soprano and muezzin) and a symphonic orchestra.