Lord Lisvane, former Clerk to the House of Commons and Chairman of the Royal College of Organists, sparked a lively correspondence in The Times earlier this year when he asked whether he was alone in deploring the popularity of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, especially ‘when there are so many wonderful alternatives’.
Lord Williams of Oystermouth, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, then weighed in to say that the hymns we sing today are at ‘primary school level’, and that ‘the great classics have fallen out of common memory’. ‘All Things B&B’ was indeed written for a volume called Hymns for Little Children in 1848 and, as well as being bland, said Lord Williams, it has a verse that describes ‘the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate’, as if their social positions had been ordained by God.
The exchange of letters was a reminder that hymns are not just ‘inspiring and uplifting’, as the Songs of Praise website would have us believe: many have a long history, and reflect the social and theological ideas and the musical fashions of their time – and both can be highly controversial.
