Yet more variations on his patent Adiemus sound are repackaged here into two lengthy, multi-movement feel-good serves, one of them devoted to a kind of shopping-centre evocation of Christmas.

His customary warm vocalisations hint at something vaguely holy, intoning words
mostly scribed, this time, by the pen of his wife, Carol Barratt – “handy and cheap”, as she rather disarmingly puts it. Trumpet and voice trill merrily, and, as always, the music that Jenkins makes is soothing and pleasant enough on the ear to defy any curmudgeonly whispers of it not being real classical music.

His forte as a composer is his unerring affinity with his audience: that chunk of the music-buying demographic that simply wants something to smile to. The similarity of this album to all his others will surely bring him another gold disc at the very least. There is, of course, nothing wrong with any of that: Jenkins may have had the devil’s own job working to perfect the trademark sound that has won him so much success.

But having done so, he now feels no compulsion to compose anything different than what has gone before. And given that the Welsh composer has garnered the laudatory acceptance by the classical music establishment, and been elevated to their summit of artistic achievement, why would he? 


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