Debby Boone comes across on this CD as one classy lady, from the stunning cover photo to the lush alto with which she handles a tenspot of well-selected traditional hymns. The orchestration is what you’d expect from a member of the Boone family: expert, spare with occasional flourishes, from time to time a jostling with the edge of Toomuchness, arrangements that are satisfying without being remarkable.
The standout is Debby, of course. From the incomparable ‘All Creatures of our God and King’ through to the CD’s eponymous ‘Be Thou My Vision’, she treats these hymns to a performance that displays deep feeling and admirable understanding of writerly phrasing and content.
Hymns like these represent one fine moment in the history of Christian song rather than a fixed point by which all variants must be judged. Still, it causes a certain sadness to imagine English-speaking Christians with no knowledge of some of the finest expressions of musical doxology to come along.
Sing, Debby, sing, lest we forget.
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