I love the hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” I (mostly) loved the Tabernacle Choir’s most recent version:
I can’t stand Mack Wilberg’s more famous arrangement.
In fact, that version is almost anti-spiritual to me. It drives the Spirit out.
But everyone else in the entire world, it seems, loves Wilberg’s arrangement. So why do I not like it?
Because it’s too loud and demanding. The lyrics of “Come, Thou Fount” are contemplative, prayerful, meek, and humble. Wilberg’s arrangement starts off that way, but mistakes volume for spiritual intensity, and so by the end, the choir and orchestra are at quadruple forte, screaming, shouting, demanding the fount show up now, or else!
The more recent MoTab version has volume, but manages to do it well – there’s clearly spiritual fervor behind the decibels, but it’s not volume for volume’s sake the way Wilberg’s version seems (to me, anyway). Well – the MoTab version does a bit too much volume and intensity on the final repeated refrain – for me, it would have been more powerful had it actually dialed the intensity back and done the refrain as something more contemplative and prayerful.
It’s one thing to be joyous and loud with a celebratory song like the Hallelujah chorus, or “In our Lovely Deseret.” But the reliance on volume to replace spiritual intensity is a problem I see in a lot of Mormon music (it’s a terrible cliche to listen to several “hymns on piano” albums aimed at the LDS market and to hear nearly every, if not every, song start out low and contemplative and end up loud and boisterous, as if every prayer started quiet and ended with yelling).
But Wilburg’s arrangement is so beloved, I am likely a heretic and many of you are fearful for the state of my eternal soul. In the words of Dr. Paul Armstrong: “Oh, well.”