"Praise My Soul The Kingdom of Heaven"

I adore hymns. I’ve blogged here about my playing of hymns as the ACS School Pianist 24 years ago before. I love hearing and singing with a large congregation songs of majesty and praise, accompanied by a pipe organ.

Just a few months ago too during a small group meeting, I was musing that whenever I turn the Wesley Hymnal to each song during early Sunday morning worship, I also always pay attention to the year it was composed. There’s just something incredibly significant about singing songs that Christians have been singing in churches for hundreds of years now. Just think about it. In another hundred years’ time when we’re all long gone, people will still be worshipping God in churches singing these same songs.

There’s a couple of hymns that are my perennial favorites. E.g. Praise My Soul The Kingdom of Heaven (audio)  which incidentally was the opening hymn I chose for our wedding, And Can It Be (audio), and Be Thou My Vision (audio).

My knowledge of hymns didn’t come from just 12 years of singing them as an Anglo-Chinese School boy. There were two hymn audio albums that I first bought in the 80s on cassette that exposed me to songs I’d up till that point haven’t heard. These two albums, Hymns Triumphant, were performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra and are pretty well-known and have been available on CD for years now. The sound even on CD (at least the versions I have) haven’t aged so well though since they were recorded more than 20 years ago, but the first album especially offers an extensive introduction to numerous hymns as they’re arranged into medleys.

The last hymn CD I bought was like 5 years ago, specifically this one by the Halifax Choral Society, one of the world’s oldest choral groups. Their rendition of Praise My Soul (audio sample on the link) is simply awe-inspiring, so much so that upon hearing it years ago, I immediately wanted this song as my opening hymn if I ever married—and this was like 2 years before meeting Ling.:)

CD albums are now harder to find given the general worldwide decline in classical music CD sales. However, I recently discovered Classics Online, and have been browsing through its very large catalog and purchasing the MP3 versions of hymn albums again. Of several albums I’ve picked up, there’s another album that’s just as amazing as the Halifax Choral Society’s one. It’s sung by the Huddersfield Choral Society featuring a mix of both well-known and less known songs in a generously filled album. There’re some audio samples here; just listen to their singing of Jesus Christ is risen today. Simply amazing.:)

One thing about the Classics Online site though; there’re so many albums there a classical music fan could easily blow his credit card limit if one wasn’t careful.:)