Choral Classics - More than Hymns

It was a great pleasure to introduce Choral Classics at St Stephen Walbrook today, live in church on Thursday 23rd September 2021 and broadcast online on Monday 27th September 2021. My script is below. You can watch the recording below (the video will not appear in ‘mobile view’ – please click “view web version” at the bottom of the home page if reading on a tablet or phone) or watch on YouTube at this link.

[Choir sings Morning Glory, Starlit Sky by Barry Rose]

Hello and welcome to Choral Classics. You’ve come to the right place for twenty minutes of divine music from the Anglican Choral, repertoire sung by our exceptional Choral Scholars under the direction of conducting fellow Olivia Tait and accompanied by our organ scholar Phoebe Tak Man Chow.

Our theme today is “More than Hymns” – Choral settings of some of our favourite hymns. We’ve just heard Morning Glory, Starlit-Sky; a text which concluded William Vanstone’s prize-winning book, ‘Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense’ published in 1977 and set to music by Barry Rose. The words speak of the precariousness of love and how the love of God is expressed through the endeavour and expense of Christ’s self-giving on the cross.

Therefore he who shows us God
helpless hangs upon the tree;
and the nails and crown of thorns
tell of what God’s love must be.

An image which inspired our next piece by a great friend of this church, the composer Bob Chilcott, which is one of five well-known hymns set to new melodies and incorporated into his captivating setting of the Passion according to Saint John which premiered in 2013. The text – ‘It is a thing most wonderful’ – written by William Walsham How, who latterly became known as the ‘Children’s Bishop’ for his enthralling story-telling and party-giving capabilities. The words reveal the love of God as seen through the eyes of a child contemplating Christ on the cross.

[Choir sings It is a thing most wonderful, Bob Chilcott]

A number of hymnals were written specially for this church in the nineteenth century. William Windle’s “St Stephen’s Penny Hymnbook” can still be found online. George Croly, a great journalist and poet who was rector here from 1835 until 1860 and who looks down upon us today from his impressive memorial on the wall to my left, published ‘Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship’ in 1854. The introduction to which, dedicated to the congregation of St Stephen Walbrook, reminds us that our great treasury of hymns have their roots in the singing of the psalms in the Jewish Temple - and commands us that the singing of hymns “is a Christian duty in which the Congregation, each and all, ought to join.” The hymnal sets many of his own poems and prayers to music, including this text, titled ‘Self-Examination’.

Behold me, Lord, and if thou find
A root of bitterness within,
Though were the wealth of worlds resigned,
Oh, cleanse me from my secret sin!

Subdue the treason of the heart:
The serpent, lurking in its fold;
The world, the tempter’s sleepless art,
By thought unfelt, by tongue untold.

Almighty, if it be thy will,
Take all the joys of life away;
But let me “commune and be still”
And teach me to repent and pray.

Let me, in soul, before thee kneel,
Descend, thou Spirit of the Dove;
Inspire the heart of stone to feel,
And bind me with the bonds of Love.

The hymn ‘Lord of All Hopefulness’ was written by Jan Struther in 1931 at the request of her friend and neighbour Percy Dearmer, editor of landmark English Hymnal.

The four verses are written in the form of prayer known as a Collect, beginning with an appeal to God, followed by a further description of an attribute of his nature, before a petition to him; in this case for God’s continuing presence from the break of the day until its end.

This musical setting is by the Danish composer and former St Martin-in-the-Fields Composer in Residence Nils Greenhow. The hymn was the last sung by the choir of St Martin in the Fields before the lockdown and this meditative arrangement was composed for the first radio broadcast after the restrictions on singing ended. In it, the composer draws on the famous Irish melody we most associate with this hymn, which is particularly apparent in the solo part

[Choir sings Lord of All Hopefulness, Nils Greenhow]

Lift Every Voice and Sing was written by James Weldon Johnson and set to music by his brother J Rosamond Johnson to be sung on the anniversary of president Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in 1900. Drawing on imagery from the book of Exodus, it is often referred to as the Black National Anthem of the United States.

Lift every voice and sing  
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us. 
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;  
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past,  
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,  
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might  
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,  
May we forever stand.  
True to our God,
True to our native land.


Thank you for joining us for this edition of Choral Classics, we’ll be back again next week. We can only do all this with your support so please do donate to help fund the fantastic music ministry here – put your cash in the money box by the organ or tap your card at contactless payment point by the door and by using the Donate button on the website if you’re watching online. Every contribution is much appreciated.

Our final piece is another song of struggle. A setting of the hymn ‘Fight the Good Fight’ by John Monsell who wrote over three hundred hymns in the nineteenth century but only this and one other (O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness) seem to live on in the hymnals of today.

Inspired by the words of St Paul to Timothy ‘Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life’ the hymn tells of the fight to maintain and exemplify our Christian faith in our way of life. A difficult task, but, as the hymn reminds us, a fight we can win with Christ as our strength, the path and the prize.

This jaunty musical setting of the text in a calypso beat is composed by John Gardner who died in 2011, the final piece in his ‘Five Hymns in Popular Style’ composed in 1962. Gardner is perhaps best known, certainly to me, for his setting of ‘Tomorrow shall be my dancing day’ with its wonderful, syncopated rhythm that has become a great stalwart of services of Nine Lessons and Carols across the land; you might hear some similarities in this rendition of Fight the Good Fight.

Inspired by this music, Keep up the Fight! And we’ll see you next week.

[Choir sings Fight the Good Fight by John Gardner]