This little rag-bag
of musical trifles is brought to us
courtesy the latest Welsh singing sensation
– from the nation that brought us Aled
and Bryn. Please give a warm hand to
Katherine Jenkins, the female answer
to Russell Watson – though chwarae
teg she’s not quite that bad. But
the mystery is how somebody with such
a staggeringly modest voice (to put
it politely) finds themselves making
a recording like this at all. Then,
of course, you see the photos and things
become a little clearer. Blonde Katherine
has the sort of pretty girl-next-door
looks that would look marvellous, say,
behind the bar in the Rovers Return
[English TV soap reference].
Unfortunately, the
sensual appeal doesn’t get into her
singing; I’ve never heard a more sexless
version of the Carmen Habanera,
complete with short-breathed phrasing
and register problems. She manages OK
in simple numbers like the Ash Grove,
but my heart sank when I saw the Allegri
Miserere listed – how was she
going to manage the soaring phrases
and the high Cs? Worry not – Morgan
Pochin, responsible for all the arrangements,
either alone or with other co-conspirators,
has transposed it down a tone to Bb
minor, and given the high phrases to
the backing choir, while our Katherine
inhabits less stratospheric regions!
Phew.
Pochin’s arrangements
are slick enough, but often become unintentionally
humorous, such as when the full chorus
suddenly bursts into the intimate little
love song on track 1, or the all-purpose
Celtic (i.e vaguely Irish) piping that
destroys that otherwise rather lovely
Welsh folk-song Ar lan y môr.
The most enjoyable
tracks on the disc are, firstly, track
5 from the Rutter Requiem, with
expressive oboe playing from Emily Pailthorpe,
and a mildly successful version of Satie’s
Gymnopédie no.1 for voice
and solo harp, with French words. On
the other hand, that piece of sub-Puccinian
flummery Cymru Fach (Little
Wales – aaah!) is simply cringe-worthy,
as is the final track, Cwm Rhondda,
where Katherine displays her rugby
credentials – ‘Wales victorious’
goes the inspired additional text, ‘Wales
victorious! Onward to the victory!’
I think we can guarantee that we’ll
hear this at least once during
the Six Nations rugby tournament (if
it hasn’t happened already while I wasn’t
paying attention).
The accompanying booklet
tells us nothing about Katherine Jenkins
at all, though in her gushing tributes,
our girl manages to thank a good proportion
of the population of Wales – I just
hope she never wins an Oscar. She has
a voice that, if allowed to develop
properly - though it will never have
anything out of the ordinary about it
- might be an attractive instrument
in five or six years’ time. Sadly, issues
like this suggest that will never happen.
Twm Siôn
Cati
http://www.katherinejenkins.co.uk/
Catherine Jenkins (voice) 