Two Beautiful Visual Hymn DVDs
Celtic Hymns
This collection of twenty visually-interpreted
hymns is a delight to the ear and eye. Mostly instrumental, except for
a few in which a woman reads a prayer by St. Patrick or Columba, the
disk could be used for personal devotions. The morning after my first
viewing I started the day with No. 16 “The Deer’s Cry,” which begins with “I arise
today...”—an excellent lead in to breakfast and a morning of
writing. The collection also could be used as part of a devotional for
a group, and many of the hymns would make a suitable prelude for a worship
service that incorporates projected images.
Some of the hymns are familiar: “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” but
instead of the tune “Beecher,” used for a long time in American
hymnals, “Hyfrdol” is used, certainly giving Charles Wesley’s
words a more Celtic sound. I was pleased to see/hear one of my favorites “Be
Thou My Vision.” The English hymns “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Amazing
Grace” are included, and for some reason the American “The Old
Rugged Cross” is included, perhaps stretching “Celtic” a
bit. However, the instruments certainly make one think of Ireland, consisting
mainly of woodwinds, fiddles and other string instruments.
Thoroughly Celtic are “Columba’s Affirmation,” “Bunnessan” (with
the haunting tune we use with “Morning Has Broken”), “A
Celtic Blessing,” “Bi a Iosa im Chroise,” “Christ
With Us,” and more. The visuals are all of Irish scenes: the rugged
sea coast and hills, harbors and coves, boats cruising on the sea, the ruins
of a monastery, abbey or castle; villages; sheep in a pasture., a village
street These are beautiful, but do not always go well with a song—there
employment emphasizing nature more than the hymn warrants. However, this
is a small quibble, by no means intended to discourage anyone from buying
this gem. And there is a bonus, a CD of the soundtrack, one that could add
enjoyment to a long commute or to be used late at night when one sits back
in a favorite chair and meditates—or, as I am now doing, playing it
while doing word processing on the computer
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To God Be the Glory
This is the second of the four Vision Video visualized hymns, the
other two being Abide With Me and Footprints. Like Celtic Hymns, this would
be a wonderful disk to use for private or group devotions. Most of the
visuals are from nature, and thus well suited for such hymns as the title
hymn, and “When
Morning Guilds the Skies,” “Be Still My Soul,” “Fairest
Lord Jesus,” and “Like a River Glorious”—I enjoyed
the latter because for me it was a new hymn. Except for the powerfully played
piano rendition of “When Morning Gilds the Skies,” an orchestra
plays the hymn, with various solo instruments playing second or third verses.
If you do not feel “powered up” after listening to one or more
of these selections, then your spirit is weak indeed.
Dark, somber chords introduce “Be Still My Soul,” and then as
the beloved strains of “Finlandia” soar forth the camera pans
slowly over one of the vistas of the Grand Canyon. In subsequent verses we
see towering buttes and cliffs, and then are returned to the Grand Canyon
for the last verse. Appropriately we see the seashore at the beginning of “It
Is Well With My Soul,” and then a number of lighthouses and seascapes
as the music continues—I say “appropriately” because this
hymn was reportedly written at sea by the father of the five girls who perished
when their ship went down near the spot by which he was sailing on his voyage
to Europe to rejoin his grieving wife.
Mountains and valleys, farms and fields of waving grain, rivers
and waterfalls, flowers and towering trees—theses and more comprise the visuals. The
only hymn that I was a little disappointed in was “Amazing Grace,” beautifully
executed by the orchestra, but all the visuals were of ice and snowscapes.
I thought at the beginning, “This is great, the filmmakers are starting
with the cold winter of sin and will progress to the greening spring and
golden summer of grace, but not so—it is winter from the beginning
to the end of the song. Again, this is a minor quibble for what will prove
to be a real blessing to the devotional life and the ministry of the purchaser.
Besides the hymns already mentioned, the 14-hymn collection includes such
favorites as “Break Thou the Bread of Life,” “The Old Rugged
Cross,” “In the Garden,” and ends with a choir singing “The
Hallelujah Chorus.”
To contact Vision Video see review just before this one.