International
It wasn’t a thousand voices shouting to the saints, as one of the hymns in the sample booklet put it; but about 80 people gathered in St James’s, Sussex Gardens, in London recently to put a fair wind behind the latest revision of the famous green-bound hymn book whose first music editor, in 1906, was the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, then only 33 years old
Hymns
“ ‘Hail to the Lord’s anointed’ is a five-verse setting of Psalm 72 by Scottish hymn-writer, poet and editor James Montgomery, who grew up in the north of England in a family who worshipped in the Moravian Brethren tradition,” says The Rev’d Dr David Cole
“This hymn is a very useful addition to our repertoire of congregational hymnody, of course, and also has other more nuanced possibilities. For example, the first two lines of each verse might be sung by a soloist or small group, with the congregation joining in the repeated final line each time. Or it might be used as a quiet background during intercessions, with the final line used as the people’s repeated spoken response to the prayers,” says The Rev’d Canon Dr David Cole
David Tapene Snr and Te Pihopatanga o Te Tai Tokerau have launched an ambitious project to digitally capture the oral history of more than 200 traditional Mihingare hymns
“There will be a place for the traditional songs in Christmas services again this year. But as enjoyable as the well-known carols are, there is always a need for a fresh sound, for a different text that can help us think anew about the nature of our Christmas celebration,” says The Rev’d Canon Dr David Cole
Meet 100-year-old Margaret Thurgood and find out about her unique faith journey, her thoughts on Advent, her work in the stock sector, the thing that makes her nostalgic and what unexpected question she is always asking herself
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