Better Poetry, Music Aim In New Hymn Book

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29178, 12 April 1960, Page 17

Better Poetry, Music Aim In New Hymn Book

LONDON, AprU 11. American negro spiritnals, some “with syncopated tones” and others in . the “blues” style—will bo included in a new hymn book being brought out for use in British schools. The book, to be published later this year by the Cambridge University Press, does away with such traditional hymns as “Holy, Holy, Holy," “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” “There is a Green Hill Far Away,” and “We Plough the Fields and Scatter.” “Their poetry does not stand among the best,” explained the book’s compiler, Mr David Holbrook, a 37-year-old British poet, playwright and teacher. His aim was to produce a collection of hymns containing the best in poetry and music. Also omitted were hymns which “pre-

sent Heaven as a chromiumplated super-Odeon in the sky and which conjure up pictures of angels, harps, white nightgowns, and cloudy heavens.” Mr Holbrook, a lecturer in English at Bassingbourn Village College, Cambridgeshire, said British schools were not providing their students with enough imaginative poetry and fiction. “Every morning millions of children are subjected to the singing of a hymn which will probably be in bad verse and to bad music. Whatever the devotional result, the effects on taste for poetry are bad,” he said. Mr Holbrook said he had 10.000 hymns under consideration. He would choose 150. His selections would have to be approved by a committee of representatives of the various churches, and by education authorities .before they would be published by the Cembridge University Press.