Karl Jenkins: new EMI CD explores Welsh roots
(October 2007)
The latest Karl Jenkins CD from EMI, This Land of Ours, explores the composer's Welsh roots.
Arrangements for brass band and male voice choir range across popular melodies, hymns and opera favourites as well as Jenkins' own compositions including Pie Jesu from Requiem and Benedictus from The Armed Man. The disc is released on 22 October.
View the video of the opening track, Cantilena, at You Tube
Visit the My Space page on the new CD
Listen to soundclips (courtesy of EMI):
Cantilena (Spirit of the Mountains)
Pie Jesu (from Requiem)
In Those Stones Horizons Sing
Benedictus (from The Armed Man)
The composer writes of the new disc: "The idea came to me earlier in the year to record an album that reflected two important facets of traditional Welsh “popular" culture, the male voice choir and the brass band, brought together for the first time on a major record release. Male voice choirs and brass bands have been synonymous with our country since the industrial revolution and although this is true of many mining communities, particularly in the north of England, the male choir has a particular resonance in Wales."
"It was crucial to have a choir that, while retaining the raw emotion of the traditional Welsh male choir, also possessed superb musicianship and reading ability, in the musical sense, which enabled me to explore more adventurous harmonies and sounds than is perhaps the norm within this genre, with the choral harmonies sometimes consisting of as many as eight separate parts when often two, or even one, is the norm. The male voice choir Cantorion, directed by Tim Rhys Evans, comprises young, vibrant voices and although only sixteen in number, they produce an enormous sound."
"I can say no more about the Cory band than that they are simply the best in the world, an extravagant claim maybe, but endorsed by the fact that soon after this recording was made in September 2007, they went on to win, under their musical director Dr. Robert Childs, the British Open Championship, ahead of such luminaries as the Black Dyke Mills & Grimethorpe Colliery bands."
"Two of the pieces have new text, in Welsh, by the outstanding Welsh poet Grahame Davies. These are reworkings of the Largo from Dvorák’s New World Symphony as Cysgu Di [Go To Sleep] and of my Adiemus Cantilena: Ysbrid Y Mynyddoedd [Spirit of the Mountains] that was the soundtrack to the C&G ‘Diver’ commercial."
Track Listing
1) Cantilena: Ysbryd y Mynyddoedd (Spirit of the Mountains)
2) Cysgu Di (Going Home)
3) Delilah
4) Abide with Me
5) Suo Gan
6) Danny Boy
7) Son of Maria
8) Pie Jesu (from Requiem)
9) Hyfrydol
10) Evening Prayer
11) In these Stones Horizons Sing
12) Flower Duet
13) Myfanwy
14) Agnus Dei (from The Armed Man)
15) Benedictus (from The Armed Man)
16) Lle cana'r eryrod (Where Eagles Sing)
17) Palladio (Digital version bonus)
18) Largo (Digital version bonus)
> Further information on Work: Cantilena
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