[Book Review] Andrew Gant, O Sing unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music. London, Profile Books, 2016

Clarke, Martin V. (2025). [Book Review] Andrew Gant, O Sing unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music. London, Profile Books, 2016. Wesley and Methodist Studies, 17(1) p. 108.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5325/weslmethstud.17.1.0108

Abstract

This survey of English church music is largely focused on pre-Reformation Roman Catholic music in England and post-Reformation music in the Church of England. As a church musician and choral composer, Gant gives significant attention to choral music, but also addresses key points in the history of congregational song. Broad-brush statements sometimes present a rather polarized account lacking nuance, for example, concerning the participation of the laity in pre-Reformation liturgy, while references to conflict between clergy and musicians become rather laboured. The chapter concerning early Methodism recounts many familiar stories about the Wesley brothers’ attitudes to music, their use of hymns, and the opposition they faced. They feature alongside a discussion of West Gallery music, heavily dependent on Thomas Hardy’s fictional account in Under the Greenwood Tree, and the relationship between this and Methodism is underexplored, as is the diversity of musical practice within the latter.

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