My dear Gnudren, This month Old Gnu offers you some gems of hymnody recorded In the last century. As I have mentioned before, us old people are noted for talking about the past. The reason for this is at least twofold. (Forgive the repetition, but us old people also like repeating ourselves.) As we grow older many of us look back and want to feel our life has added up to something more than just a fat pension off the dear old Church of England – although that is very very nice indeed. If you are a megalomaniac (as some have suggested I might be) this aspect of old age is not prominent in one’s consciousness. We recall Zaphod Beeblebrox who is said to have had a massively big ego; so much so that when he entered TheTotal Perspective Vortex he came out unscathed. Others lost their sanity on realising their tiny-ness and insignificance amidst the enormity of Life, the Universe and Everything.

But even those of us with enormous egos do occasionally have an aberration and look back in order to come to terms with past sins. We hope for a resolution and a resulting peace of mind. Others of us are quite unrepentant of what they did in the past. Alas old Gnu arrogantly errs towards this unrepentant condition and hardness of heart. Under the Bonus Tracks menu he presents you with two pieces of hymnody. Not only is he unrepentant about the arrangements, he has added further sins to the record: loud timpani that he used to dream of possessing in his days as Dictator of Music, and that now live in his shed. And also the mighty Hereford Cathedral Willis Organ which certainly wasn’t in the Great Hall of the University of Aberystwyth where the two items were recorded in 1986. That also is in his shed. These and other pieces recorded in Aberystwyth, which will appear, are fairly typical of a Sunday 6.30pm service at Christ Church Clifton in the last quarter of the past century. The only difference being, that some will be sung in Welsh, something which I don’t think we ever did at CCC. Speaking and singing in tongues wasn’t a regular occurrence there, as I recall, even though it was all the rage in the late 1970s.

And so to our first offering: Christ Triumphant ever reigning is possibly one of the best of the hundred or so hymns written by Canon Michael Saward. Together with John Barnard’s magnificent tune, Guiting Power, (an unlikely name for a village after which the hymn tune is named) and its fabulous descant, they make for an overwhelmingly exhilarating combination. In the 1980s, impetuous young Gnu (as he was) could not resist going OTT by adding blaring brass to cap the last verse descant – of which a colleague once encouragingly commented: one of your bizarre hallmarks. Do listen to it! As I say, you will be overwhelmingly exhilarated, and possibly clean slain in the Spirit. If you are prone to experiencing the latter, be careful where you fall. You might bang your head with serious consequences. In which case I suggest that you ensure that someone is present with you when you are listening. Health and Safety considerations are always our priority. Together with many building sites we have a Zero Harm policy. I suspect that some building sites I have passed recently achieve the aims of Zero Harm because they also have a Zero Work policy.

Our second offering is the spontaneous elaboration of the wondrously joyful Taizé Chant Laudate Dominum (even though it is in a minor key). I am not sure what the Taizé Community would think of it. I hope they will forgive me. Since it is in copyright I cannot provide the music for this or Christ Triumphant. You can find the Chant in one of the early Taizé music publications, and you can buy the music for Christ Triumphant for £1.49 from the Jubilate Hymns website (if you haven’t got it in a hymnbook already). You will be helping two very worthy causes and communities.