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Track(s) taken from CDP12101

My song is love unknown – Love Unknown

First line:
My song is love unknown
composer
NEH 86; The Public School Hymn Book
author of text

Wells Cathedral Choir, Malcolm Archer (conductor), Rupert Gough (organ)
Recording details: June 1999
Wells Cathedral, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Antony Howell & Julian Millard
Release date: November 1999
Total duration: 3 minutes 5 seconds
 

Reviews

‘The time spent listening to it has been delightful. Tone, enunciation, resourcefulness of arrangement and accompaniment, all are exemplary’ (Gramophone)
There are words that are available for many years before being brought fully to life by being given a tune. This is a supreme example. The words were published by Samuel Crossman in his Young Man’s Meditation in 1664, many generations before the singing of hymns was allowed in the Church of England. The words were brought into hymnbooks in the second half of the nineteenth century, with a worthy but not exciting tune. In 1918 John Ireland was the organist of St Luke’s, Chelsea, with a growing name as a composer, chiefly of songs and piano music. He was asked to contribute a tune for these words for the 1919 edition of The Public School Hymn Book. He wrote this irresistible tune immediately in a quarter of an hour on the back of a menu card. The shape of the tune reflects the form of the words but is not tied to it. In each verse the fifth line startles (above all perhaps in verse 4, ‘Sweet injuries’) and the tune with its modulation answers in a way that never fails to satisfy and enlarge the appreciation of the words.

from notes by Alan Luff © 1999

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