Japanese echoes of Jenkins' Adiemus

Refreshing haiku settings strategically lighten the mood between Jenkins' more sterile Latin movements.

Composer: Karl Jenkins
Repertoire: Requiem; In These Stones Horizons Sing
Artists: Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone), Catrin Finch (harp), West Kazakhstan PO/Jenkins
Rating:  2/5 
Genre: Vocal
Label: EMI Classics 557 9662

German music scholars might have coined the pejorative term ‘cobbler’s patch’ to define the stepwise sequential repetitions favoured by Karl Jenkins in his Requiem. The composer overcooks his score’s ritual elements, almost to destruction. Echoes of Jenkins’s Adiemus works surface in the strategically-implanted Japanese haiku settings, offering welcome relief from the sterile Latin movements.