Perfect wallpaper?
STRING HEAVEN
The King’s Chamber Orchestra
Fierce! Distribution. £12.00
This CD consists of 15 mostly recent hymns and worship songs, beautifully and sensitively rendered by a gifted chamber orchestra. The group, called The King’s Chamber Orchestra and led by Gerard Le Feuvre, has been in existence since 1985 and recently played at many venues, especially around London.
The tunes range from ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Here is Love vast as the ocean’ through more up-to-date classics such as ‘In Christ Alone’ and ‘Jesus Christ, I think upon your Sacrifice’. The arrangements are subtle, unobtrusive but interesting. For example, the pizzicato backing for the main air of ‘How Deep the Father’s Love’ makes the piece both gentle and spritely simultaneously.
Obviously these are tunes without words and I suppose I have tended to use the CD as background music (what some people would call audio ‘wallpaper’) to accompany daily tasks around the house. However, the words and Christian truths of the well-known pieces in the collection are brought to mind and it makes for a peaceful and edifying listen which I can recommend. Probably my calling it ‘wallpaper’ is a little unkind. I greatly enjoyed listening to it.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church …