‘These anthems are some of the last roses of a very long summer. Splendid though they are, they still show hardly any advance on Stanford—or even Wesley.’ Kenneth Long’s assessment, in his The Music of the English Church, of the anthems by William Harris will come as a shock to devotees of English church music, presumably everyone reading this. He goes on: ‘Since 1950 there has been an astonishing revolution in church music and it is fairly safe to say that from now onwards no composer of any calibre could continue to express himself in these threadbare idioms.’ The most recent work on this very fine disc, Bring us, O Lord God, was written in 1959 and Harris lived until 1973, so that, when we consider what Howells, Walton, Britten and Tippett were composing, we must realise that Harris was unaffected by any of the new developments of the 20th century. In that respect, therefore, Long’s assessment is correct. What we have here is, unashamedly, music of a particular age, performed in one of the noblest of sacred spaces of England by one of its finest choirs. This disc could be no better introduction to the music of these three major composers for the Anglican Church and is a great addition to an already established CD collection. I’m afraid to say that Kenneth Long goes further to suggest that ‘much of the music discussed [in this section], though highly popular at the moment (1971) … will gradually drop out of use.’ He is clearly wrong, for the music here is still an essential part of any Anglican choir’s repertoire. The performances here are excellent. The choir shows complete affinity with the music and there is skilful accompaniment from Peter Holder, who brings off the quasi-orchestral accompaniments with great aplomb. The highlight for me is For lo, I raise up—full of passion and a superb interpretation of the text from all concerned.