Last Saturday we went to hear Karl Jenkins conduct The Armed Man at the Royal Festival Hall – he also played some extracts from Palladio and Adiemus. Good stuff: to me Jenkins, along with others such as Michael Nyman, stands for the welcome return of serious orchestral music that is melodic, not austerely intellectual, and not film music (though I suppose most of Nyman’s stuff is for films.

It’s true that Jenkins relies a lot on bright, uptempo stuff and there tends to be relatively little dramatic development within pieces: they set a mood and stick with it (maybe a bit like film music after all). He has also been a little brave in taking inspiration from other cultures – you don’t have to be extremely woke to wonder whether there’s something a bit off in people singing in a fake African language. We also had muezzin singing (why not, I suppose). On the whole I think Jenkins is just respectful enough to his sources to get away with it.

A very enjoyable afternoon, anyway.