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The English Hymn 4 - All Things Bright and Beautiful

Label: Hyperion
Released: 05 May 2003
RRP: £9.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

English Hymns 4 - Worth the Strange Looks - By: L. Collins, 25 Nov 2003
Despite receiving strange looks from my husband, I played the above at full volume to get the benefit of the beautiful orchestration & vocals.

I wouldn't have put myself down as a huge fan of choral works, so it's either a sign of getting old or just that I have such fond memories of singing hymns at school [which, incidentallly, I probably thought I hated at the time]; but I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck as I listened to songs I haven't heard for 30 years, such as He Who Would Valiant Be & When a Knight Won His Spurs.

I felt quite sad listening to this CD & realising that due to current education policy, my own children will never become familiar with hymns like these, which are often poetic & moving even if you don't have any strong religious affiliations.

I would recommend it not just to those who enjoy choir music [which admittedly wouldn't include a single one of my friends] but also to anyone over the age of 40 who hasn't sung a hymn for years but fancies a trip down memory lane to their old school assemblies.

Excellent performance, if with specialist appeal - By: Bernard Morey, 26 Jun 2003
I can imagine how this recording would have limited appeal, even within a series with a specialist audience. In Australia at any rate the singing of traditional children's hymns has long since falllen out of favour. Indeed, traditional hymns, that is, 19th century Protestant hymns, have become decidedly unpopular as trendy clerics have replaced them with tuneless but rhythmic songs with 'youth appeal' in a vain bid to halt the rapid decline in church attendances.

My generation – now middle-aged -- is probably the last (in Australia) raised on children's hymns, those staples of the morning service (second hymn) & Sunday School. And highly popular they were in the past. I still have the book I used as the Sunday School pianist – "The School Hymn Book of the Methodist Church", published by the Methodist Youth Department, London, in 1950. In some 800 pages it has 650 hymns (many of course, also in the Methodist Hymn Book) suitable for children, a rather astonishing number. Probably less than 50 of these were regularly sung.

This recording is a magnificent tribute to these forgotten pieces. The arrangements are traditional & well-sung with no unnecessary ornamentation (sometimes added by modern hymn arrangements in the mistaken belief this improves the performance).

This recording will appeal to anyone who enjoys hymns, as I do, as a secular musical experience, or has a sentimental attachment to these lost treasures.