O Sing Unto the Lord: Andrew Gant *****

By Brian Clegg

This is one for the music history fans, and/or those with an interest in church music. This definitely includes me – I’ve sung in choirs since I was about 10 and this kind of music is amongst my favourite listening. Andrew Gant does a brilliant job of digging into English church music throughout history, though almost inevitably the biggest focus is from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

This might seem a very dry subject, but Gant brings it alive, helped by his even drier sense of humour. This is obviously a matter of taste, but if you find amusing his remark on Prince Albert’s compositions ‘He certainly did not possess a strong enough musical personality to overcome the prevailing tendency to write bad Mendelssohn, but he did it quite well. His Te Deum and Jubilate contain some quite good bad Mendelssohn,’ you will enjoy it as I did.

Inevitably the Reformation and subsequent switches of England between protestant and Catholic features heavily with its fascinating impact on composers and their work – particularly complex during Elizabeth’s reign, when a staunchly Catholic composer like Byrd was able to keep his balance (and his head) by being considered a sufficiently impressive musician that he was allowed to get away with much that might have end the career or life of another. The basics of that were familiar to me, but a lot of the period through to the Victorians was new. Music we would consider everyday now like hymns and their tunes (which Gant points out even turn up as football chants) really only started to come together towards the end of the eighteenth century (and weren’t technically legal for use in Church of England services until 1820), while Anglican chant, familiar to any choral evensong fan was primarily a nineteenth century innovation – along, of course, with much of the Christmas repertoire.

The twentieth century and beyond gets rather summary treatment. In part I think this is fair. As Gant points out it was a time of splintering. Where almost all earlier periods had specific styles and approaches, most twentieth century church composers very much did their own thing. I think Gant could have put a bit more into analysis of the development of worship songs (rather outside his comfort zone, I suspect, though he says some positive, or at least fair things). 

A couple of small negatives. The book is a bit too long. While prepared to mention quite a few unfamiliar names from, say, the Tudorbethan period, it sticks to the well-known in Victorian and Edwardian times, ignoring those who were very popular then but have pretty much disappeared. For example, I was disappointed not get a mention of Caleb Simper whose sheet music sold incredibly well (over 5 million copies) and was a staple of many country and colonial churches. The illustrations are also irritating – they were clearly designed for plates, so are bunched together in two lumps, but are just printed on ordinary pages, so could have been placed near the text they illustrate to much greater effect.

I realise that the readership of a book like this is relatively limited. But if, like me, this kind of music plays an important part in your life, then it is an absolute must to own.

You can buy O Sing Unto the Lord from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Bookshop.org

Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.