Religious hymns are a core part of Christian worship – and have been since at least the Ancient Greek era. Very occasionally, a single composer will write a hymn's words and music. More often, one person's text is set to another's melody. But what are the greatest hymns of them all?
Here, we suggest our greatest hymns filled with our favourite combinations of fine words and equally magnificent music…
Best hymns of all time
Guide me, O Thou Great Redeemer
Prince William and Catherine Middleton chose this hymn to begin their wedding in April 2011. Few hymns set such an uplifting tone as this Welsh masterpiece – and few are as enjoyable to sing. Usually accompanying the words by Welsh Methodist William Williams (1717-1791) is John Hughes’s magnificent ‘Cwm Rhondda’ tune from 1905, named after the valley in South Wales.
To many, the hymn is better known as ‘Bread of Heaven’, due to those famous repeated words in the first verse. The following ‘Feed me till I want no more’ traditionally divides the congregation between those who stick with the high note in the tune and those who prefer to dip down to sing the upwardly accompanying ‘Want no moooooore!’ with appropriate gusto. The choice is yours.
'Guide me, O Thou Great Redeemer', one of the most famous Welsh hymns of all time, is also a popular rugby song for the Welsh fans. Welsh music lovers consider the song to be their second national anthem (behind ’Land of My Fathers’).
Jerusalem
Another favourite at weddings, and a regular at patriotic sing-alongs such as the Last Night of the Proms, Jerusalem is also something of an enigma. What exactly was William Blake referring to in his 1804 poem? Was ‘And did those feet in ancient time’ really eulogising England, or did the ‘dark Satanic mills’ imply a more ominous vision of the future?
Hubert Parry wrote his famous tune in 1916 – but the story is somewhat controversial. When the Gloucestershire composer was reluctant for it to be used to support of the patriotic Fight for Right campaign (for which it had been commissioned), it was taken up instead by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. Unusually, Parry’s setting has a four-bar intro on the organ before each verse. It's at which point that everyone joins in together in glorious, boisterous unison. The word 'belter' springs to mind. Unquestionably, one of the best hymns of all time.
Be Thou My Vision
Next, we head over to Ireland. Saint Dálian is perhaps the master behind the words to this uniquely evocative hymn. The Irish poet later met a sticky end at the hands of pirates in the early seventh century.
They may well date from later than that, however. They are commonly sung to the folk-derived hymn tune ‘Slane’. Named after a village in County Meath, the tune was first found in Patrick Joyce’s Old Irish Folk Music and Songs in 1909. ‘Be Thou My Vision’ doesn’t have the beautiful chant-like phrases of 'Slane' all to itself, however. The tune is also used for the hymn ‘Lord of all hopefulness’.
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
Long before he penned Jerusalem, Hubert Parry also wrote an oratorio called Judith. The piece tells the gruesome story of the eponymous Old Testament heroine. Despite its gory subject matter, it features a rather lovely aria you might be familiar with. In it, Queen Meshullemeth tells the children about how their ancestors arrived in Israel.
Six years after Parry's death in 1918, the aria’s tune was taken by George Gilbert Stocks, a music teacher at Repton School in Derbyshire. He adapted the tune to fit ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’. This hymn's words were originally found in the poem The brewing of Soma by the US quaker John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92). To make the ‘Repton’ tune to work, however, the last line of each verse needs to be repeated. And it's that last line that provides the real magic of this hymn though. In the final verse, we follow the climax of ‘earthquake, wind, and fire’ by descending to a hush for the ‘still, small voice of calm’.
We named 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind' one of the best hymns for funerals.
Amazing Grace
Few hymns tell such a personal story as Amazing Grace. The hymn's author John Newton (1725-1807) was a former slave trader who converted to Christianity after surviving a shipwreck off County Donegal. He went on to become a committed abolitionist. The words ‘That sav’d a wretch like me!’ could refer to both his physical escape and his spiritual conversion. The text is usually set to the tune 'New Britain'.
The hymn is a pentatonic melody originating from American music. A pentatonic melody is one that pianists can play using just the instrument's black notes. The immense popularity of 'Amazing Grace' has spread well beyond the church. Famous recordings have been made of it by the likes of Elvis Presley, soprano Jessye Norman and Johnny Cash.
The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended
Even the great Ralph Vaughan Williams didn’t do everything right. For some reason, the eminent British composer and hymn editor loathed ‘St Clement’, the gorgeously arching tune for this hymn. Sorry, Ralph, but millions of us would beg to differ. It's sung so movingly at the funeral or memorial of a loved one. Though specifically an evening hymn, its words naturally lend it to this other purpose.
BBC’s Songs of Praise voted it third in a poll of the best hymns of all time in 2005. Other fans of the hymn include Queen Victoria, who included it in her diamond jubilee service in 1897, and Rick Wakeman, who featured the tune on his 1973 album The Six Wives of Henry VIII.
You can find the lyrics to some of your favourite hymns here
