Release Date: 09 January 2005
Label: Naxos - Ex Select Products / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313257829
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: ABIDE WITH ME AND OTHER FAVOURITE HYMNS
Description
Abide with me and other favourite hymnsVernacular hymns, etymologically songs of praise, are aparticular feature of the worship of the ProtestantReformation, assuming various forms over the centuries,as Christian beliefs and practices have undergonechanges. The German hymns of Martin Luther, chorales,some derived both in text and melody from earlierCatholic Latin hymns, came to form an idiosyncratic andessential element in Lutheran worship, while extremerReformers, following Calvin in Geneva, favouredversions of the Psalms, the pattern adopted in theSternhold and Hopkins English metrical Psalter of 1562,which included 65 melodies from the Genevan Psalter.Succeeding generations brought additions to therepertoire of popular hymns, enjoying varied success.George Wither, in 1623, managed to ensure that his TheHymnes and Songs of the Church, a collection to whichOrlando Gibbons contributed, should be bound togetherwith all copies of the metrical psalms, but his attempts,with his own feeble verses, were frustrated by theStationers' Company, which had its own monopoly toprotect. Collections of hymns were published later in theseventeenth century by Playford, and in 1700 came Tateand Brady's Supplement to the New Version of thePsalms, a compilation that included a small number ofhymns. Nahum Tate, the librettist of Purcell's Dido andAeneas and poet laureate, survives as a hymnodist in hisWhile shepherds watched, and with Nicholas Brady in Aspants the hart, Through all the changing scenes of life,and Have mercy, Lord, on me.The eighteenth century brought the significant Hymnsand Spiritual Songs of Isaac Watts, author of some of themost popular hymns still sung. His influence wasapparent in the hymns of Charles Wesley, and the form ofpopular worship fostered by the Wesleys, with its strongemphasis on singing, as Methodism developed,challenging the established Church. Some of these hymnsfound their way into Anglican worship, in spite oftraditional objections to any alteration of the liturgy asestablished by law and enshrined in The Book of CommonPrayer. The result in the nineteenth century was theflourishing of the Anglican hymn, now drawing onProtestant and Catholic sources. A suitable Anglicancompromise between the two was reached in 1861 withHymns Ancient and Modern, a collection that won thewidest currency, and, while Tractarian in originalinspiration, nevertheless managed to cater for a widerange of theological opinion. The English Hymnal of1906, edited by Percy Dearmer, with music edited byVaughan Williams, might have displaced Hymns Ancientand Modern had it not been seen as too 'Catholic', in spiteof its address to 'all broad-minded men'. Songs of Praise,published in 1925, won less favour, discarding, as it did,elements of popular Victorian repertoire in favour of newmelodies.The present anthology of English hymns opens withAll people that on earth do dwell by William Kethe, fromDaye's Psalter of 1500-01, sung to the tune of the OldHundredth from the
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
