Psalms of David Complete [Box set, Import]

Choir of St Paul's Cathedral (Artist), John Scott (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 8, 2002)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 12
• Format: Box set, Import
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Hyperion UK
• ASIN: B00006GO6J
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,080 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What can you say?, January 2, 2003

By 

Carlo (Yonkers, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Psalms of David Complete (Audio CD)

I almost hate to criticize this terrific thing. After all, where else can you get all 150 Psalms in a single collection sung by one of the world's great choirs?

How much do I like it? I bought it *twice*. I originally bought all the CDs separately, before they came out with a single boxed set. They were stolen from my car (no doubt converting the thief to Anglican Cathedral Music in the process). After they were stolen, I immediately bought them again.

One of the great pleasures of life is listening to the Morning and Evening Psalms while driving to and from work, and making listening a regular feature of Morning and Evening Prayer.

So what's the criticism? The sound is a bit muddy, so the words can be rather difficult to understand without reading along (which is a real problem when driving), and personally, I prefer the Psalter from the 1979 BCP instead of the old one, from the Coverdale Psalter. But that's unreasonable. They ARE a British choir after all. Those are the only criticisms.

Anyhow, if you have a taste for choral cathedral music, this is genuinely indispensable. St. Paul's has given the world a gift.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great accomplishment, could be even greater, December 21, 2007

By 

M. Snell - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Psalms of David Complete (Audio CD)

This is a monumental achievement and to be commended.

My only comment is that the recording was done in St. Paul's Cathedral where the sound is very resonant. This makes the feel very "churchy" which is nice for the experience of the music. But, I like these recordings for devotional use and the resonance blurs the lyrics such that they can be difficult to hear easily, and in my opinion this is too bad. Would that the recording equipment had been configured to hear the voices close and clear.

Maybe this recording could be remixed/enhanced so that the experience is first about the words and notes of the singers' voices?

But get this one nonetheless, it's great text, great music, great experience of choral worship.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A- for effort, February 22, 2006

By 

F. W. Brownlow (Holyoke, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Psalms of David Complete (Audio CD)

This grand undertaking deserves high praise, and I'm struck, listening to chant after chant, how much Anglican chant as it used to be until the changes of the 70s was one of the great Victorian contributions to English life and art. For anyone who wants to hear almost the entire repertoire of Anglican chant deployed in singing the whole book of Psalms, this is an unrivalled source. It is wonderful, too, to hear the Coverdale translation: you realize what the churches have lost by abandoning the proper & regular singing of the Psalms. So one is immensely grateful to Hyperion for putting out this recording. It's not perfect, though.

The rhythmic pacing, though a little slow for my taste, is steady and sensitive, the diction clear, and the organ accompaniment superb (Providing an expressive accompaniment to a choir singing in 4-part free rhythm, and improvising descants to the melody at the same time, isn't easy). And of course there's the cavernous acoustic of St. Paul's, very impressive in the more thunderous psalms. Unfortunately, though, the "forward" style favored for the St. Paul's boys produces a sound that's unpleasantly chesty in the lower registers and reedy in the higher ones. The poorly integrated choral sound caused by this kind of voice-production can be downright unpleasant for anyone used to, or trained in, the classic English choral style. In fact, one has to wonder why this choir was chosen for such a huge project: even allowing for the near-universal decline in standards of vocal training for boys in England, better sounds than this can still be heard.