472 tunes including the best-loved compositions of the past, many new tunes, and fresh arrangements of some excellent ‘lost’ tunes. Over 100 tunes will not be found in other British tune books in current use. The chief intention of this selection is to present tunes that are melodic, memorable, and consistent with intelligent worship. Tunes are in metrical categories, in alphabetical order of name. (Music only, without words.)
The majority have been tried in the Metropolitan Tabernacle services, before being adopted into regular worship. Acceptance (or otherwise) by the large, multi-national congregation (rather than an editorial committee) has steered the project.
As Dr Peter Masters comments about the new tunes specially composed for the hymns, ‘In my view, these compositions ideally carry the sentiments of strong traditional-genre hymns, and all possess their own distinctive and memorable theme melody. I do not think that there is any other composer of traditional hymn music over the centuries who has contributed so many uniquely original melodies to our corpus of hymn tunes. May this selection be a benefit and blessing to churches worldwide that love reverent worship.’
