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Karl Jenkins Motets

Karl Jenkins Motets—Polyphony/Stephen Layton (DeutGram 4793232)

This 2014 release is another discovery from the bowels of WCLV’s CD library and celebrated the composer’s 70 th birthday and 50-year career in music. AllMusic.com’s review by James Manheim begins: “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…are not original compositions (except for Locus iste), but rearrangements of some of the composer's biggest successes : The Armed Man and The Peacemakers primary among them… John Rutter does sentimental unaccompanied evocations of English tradition better.  What's distinctive about Jenkins is the pleasingly eclectic quality of his music, with references ranging from the medieval song L'homme armé (The Armed Man) to popular and world traditions all made to hold together…There are surely plenty of listeners who will enjoy the sweet harmonies, and Stephen Layton and Polyphony establish themselves as Jenkins' ideal interpreters.”

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