It would be easy, and true enough, to say that those who like the productions of British crossover composer Karl Jenkins will love this collection of motets, while his many highbrow detractors will hate it. It's incumbent on both groups, however, to try to see where the music here fits into his overall output. These motets, released in conjunction with the composer's 70th birthday, are not original compositions (except for Locus iste, track 10), but rearrangements of some of the composer's biggest successes: The Armed Man ...
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It would be easy, and true enough, to say that those who like the productions of British crossover composer Karl Jenkins will love this collection of motets, while his many highbrow detractors will hate it. It's incumbent on both groups, however, to try to see where the music here fits into his overall output. These motets, released in conjunction with the composer's 70th birthday, are not original compositions (except for Locus iste, track 10), but rearrangements of some of the composer's biggest successes: The Armed Man and The Peacemakers primary among them. The arrangements are by Jenkins himself, and the recycling ethos is common enough in this kind of music, where successful profit centers should be exploited to the maximum. The question is whether this format improves the music, and for the most part the answer is no. The music is reduced to its basic vertical sonorities, and these are not really its strong point: John Rutter does sentimental unaccompanied evocations of English tradition...
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