THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I've heard someone call an Arabic incantation and a medieval Persian poem in Aramaic "lowbrow."

Karl Jenkins: Triumph of banal manipulation

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 17/03/2008 [The Telegraph]

David Fanning reviews Karl Jenkins at Liverpool Cathedral

With their third world premiere as part of Liverpool's Capital of Culture programme, the RLPO and its Chorus have placed a large tick in the "mass appeal" box, as a near-unanimous standing ovation for Karl Jenkins's Stabat Mater in a sold-out Anglican Cathedral confirmed.

Responsible for the chart-topping Adiemus and Requiem, Jenkins has hit on a recipe for success. It consists of elementary chord progressions, four-bar phrases, primary-colour scoring with splashes of exotica, and vocal lines that lie well for children and amateurs.

Inclusiveness is evidently one of his aims; at least inclusiveness from the lowbrow down. So this Stabat Mater - in 12 movements, lasting 65 minutes - intersperses the Roman Catholic sequence with six other texts, including an Arabic Incantation, a Lament (of stupefying banality) by the composer's wife, and a 13th-century Persian poem sung in English and Aramaic.

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I suppose this means Mr. Fanning didn't like the music, but the texts still sound cool.