By common consent, When I survey the wondrous Cross is one of the finest hymns to spring from the evangelical movement in eighteenth-century England. The gory imagery of Isaac Watts’ text of 1707 is remote from present-day religious thought (if not from present-day Hollywood films) but was common currency to Protestants of the time: Bach set similarly bloodstained texts to music in his cantatas and Passions without complaint. The tune, an adaptation of a melody called Tunbridge made by Edward Miller, organist of Doncaster Parish Church and a former flautist in Handel’s orchestra, was published in 1790 and soon became the standard one for these words. It was aptly harmonized by the glee composer Samuel Webbe in 1820.

from notes by Collegium Records © 2000