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Books

A Horrible History of English Hymns

Andrew Gant’s authoritative study of English church music is ruined by mateyness and coarse tabloidese

12 December 2015

9:00 AM

12 December 2015

9:00 AM

O Sing Unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music Andrew Gant

Profile, pp.352, £20, ISBN: 9781781252475

Given that for much of English history the country’s main musical tradition was that connected with the church, it is surprising that so little effort has been made to describe the evolution of, as the subtitle to Andrew Gant’s book puts it, the ‘History of English Church Music’. If we read biographical accounts of the lives of composers from Tallis to Vaughan Williams we pick up some of the story, but far from all of it.

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