The Service was the Lord’s; anthem, canticles, psalms and responsories were the choir’s; and the hymns were anybody’s. That (roughly) is how I remember it. Of course the best of hymns were acknowledged as having dignity, strength and other appeals to heart and head; and with descants and special harmonies by Vaughan Williams or David Willcocks they could join in musical character and interest. But it seems to be a relatively recent development that their performance has become something of an art form.
The art lies in knowing how much to arrange and how much to leave be. On the whole, I would think John Rutter has it right. In Love divine, for instance, the first verse has the voices in unison and the harmonies ‘straight’, verse 2 has the choir in standard four-part harmony, and verse 3 has a descant and new harmonies, both of which are emboldened to acquire a richer life towards the end. Most are accompanied by the organ, some by organ and brass, a few by harp. These include the group described as ‘folk hymns’ ending with We plough the fields and scatter, taken at a brisk pace and sounding almost Haydnesque. Gibbons’s Drop, drop slow tears is sung unaccompanied throughout, with no ‘improvements’. Tallis’s Glory to thee, my God has verse 4 in double canon. And Rutter provides a hymn of his own, Eternal God, written in 1999 ‘with the aim of augmenting the meagre stock of hymns which make mention of music’.
Generally, the selection is fine, both words and music. In performance, the plainsong hymns are rather too ‘barred’, and the somewhat garish stained-glass ending of Let all mortal flesh keep silence will not be to everyone’s taste. But this, as we know, is an excellent choir; they are fortified by some splendid players; and presentation and recorded sound (apart from recessing the choir too much in the hymns with brass) are admirable also.'