My Song is Love Unknown

Ashdown sets the first four verses of Samuel Crossman’s masterful hymn, altering the poetic effect considerably. Just as following the suggestion in The Hymnal 1982 to sing the first, second, and last verses glosses over the meat of the poetic argument, this setting’s break at the end of verse four leaves the arc oddly incomplete. This is heightened by the fact that more than the other verses, the fourth leads strongly into the following one, an impulse that is obviously denied here. The poem in this shortened form is very dark, yet Ashdown’s music is resiliently sanguine. Vocal lines are expertly written, with plenty of stepwise motion and harmonically well-prepared leaps. Technically, the music is moderately easy and, while through-composed , the catchy tunes are easy to grasp. However, some of the phrases are a bit too neat and tidy, although the predictability contributes to its accessibility.
The Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians
December 2013