Anglican choral music barely existed outside the high church cathedrals from the height of the reformation to the Oxford Movement's embrace of hymns ancient and modern. Sumptuous reproductions of the pivotal music highlight the influences of the sacred and profane, continental and insular trends, and political pressure on the development of the Anglican choral tradition.

"How did modern evangelicalism lose its balance? How did some behaviour fall into an accountability category while other distractions remained unaddressed and therefore socially and religiously acceptable?"