Reviewed by Andy Cooper

This collection features a variety of modern choruses and well established hymns arranged for string quartet in a classical style, some with piano or harpsichord accompaniment. The musicians are known as The Sacred Arts Quartet, with Phillip Keveren on the various keyboards. The opener is Tim Hughes' "Here I Am To Worship" which doesn't quite suit, with its modern syncopated melody at odds with the classical Schubert-like arrangements. It settles down with the next track, "Victory In Jesus" with its much more traditional tune allowing a more fluid lilt, with the mixture of rhythmic bow scrubbing and plucking similar to that used by Mozart on more light-hearted occasions. "How Great Thou Art" is more solemn, allowing a pleasant contrapuntal joust between cello and violins. And "God Of Wonders" is given a pastoral Vaughan-Williams treatment. So it's generally quite a creative album, recommended for those looking for sanctified background music rather than classical connoisseurs who might be repelled by the three or four 21st century tunes.

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