Make a joyful noise

[callmemadam]

BBC TV's popular Songs of Praise programme has had a poll to pick the top ten favourite hymns. Looking at the list, I see at least three hymns which I really dislike. Radio 4's Sunday has had a much better idea: vote for your favourite but also your least favourite hymn.

It's really hard to choose a favourite hymn out of so many great ones. Most of mine tend to be Lenten hymns, like My Song is Love Unknown and When I Survey the Wondrous Cross or hymns set to tunes by Bach, Holst and other masters. In the end I plumped for Praise, my Soul, the King of Heaven because it's a happy one. For my hate I picked dreary Lord of the Dance because I think the rot set in when it was introduced. Not that I dislike everything modern: it's banality and poverty of language I object to.

You can vote here.

Comments

[hartleyhare.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent! It is difficult to find a favourite (though I think I might plump for Tell Out My Soul, on the grounds of general rousingness) but I might have to join you in voting for Lord of the Dance as most disliked.

The organist at our church has a habit of playing everything he loathes (basically, anything insipid) with a kind of Wurlitzer effect, which is v. entertaining on a Sunday morning, though not the effect the vicar wants, I'm sure.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Tee hee, your organist sounds naughty. Ours has retired after years of being a thorn in the flesh of all incumbents. Tell Out My Soul is a jolly good one. Since I got this hymn thing in my head I've been singing Praise to the Holiest non-stop.

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

If atheists are allowed a preference I should vote for Cwm Rhondda, as far as tunes go. I agree with you about Lord of the Dance and its ilk, but then again I grew up Catholic and your average RC hymn is such a tuneless dirge* that even folk masses came as a relief.

* or perhaps it's just that the Irish and the Poles have no traditions of choral singing. I turned my hearing aid off at the btother's wedding.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Poor old Catholics, they lost it at the Reformation and now we have not only all the best churches but a better liturgy (since they were misguided enough to give up the Latin Mass)and a choral tradition which exists nowhere else in the world. So we are the Catholics now? Cwm Rhondda is certainly a great tune. Another great Welsh one, of course, is Abide With Me, can't remember what the tune is called. Not a dry eye in the church.

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

There's a down side to the Reformation, mind; all those churches and cathedrals are now exceedingly drab inside, thanks to those pesky Puritans.

I remember the Tridentine Mass (not strictly Latin, since bits of it were in Greek); in fact there's a church on North Quay in Dublin still does them. I can't say its passing is much regretted; sounded very awesome and sonorous when done properly, but ridiculous when done without feeling in a nasal Ulster accent. And what is the point of a liturgy no-one understands?

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I have been to a funeral where the Tridentine mass was used and I have to say it was ghastly. Private business between the priest, the deceased and God, which I do understand, but grim for the rest of us, who didn't even have books to follow.

The great advantage of the Latin though was surely its universality? You could follow the service anywhere in the world.

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

I've never understood this argument; the liturgy follows the same pattern in whatever language, and the only bit you need to follow is the Communion, which ought be fairly obvious. Friends-and-relations of mine have had no problem with Masses in Polish and Catalan (although obviously they kept schtum for the hymns).

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I've never understood this argument

I bow to your inside knowledge.

[hartleyhare.livejournal.com]

I grew up Catholic too, and have memories of interminable hymn practice on Wednesday mornings at school. I remember lots of stuff about Mary and not much else. I agree about Cwm Rhondda, though ...

I may have to friend you, as a fellow David Lodge and Philip Larkin fan : )

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

Friend away! Hartley Hare, eh? I remember him. Had a thing about teaspoons, if I recall correctly.