Mormon Tabernacle Choir - Songs of the Civil War & Stephen Foster Favorites

Magestic music

These are Civil War songs and are sung in the usual all out effort of the Morman Tabernacle Choir. Many of these are simple songs and would probably be best with a solo singer and a guitar. To hear them sung with massed choirs, full blown organ and all the embellishments is pretty strange but all in all they are a pleasure to hear. June 21, 2008

Reward for a long search

This is the reward for a long search although it is not exactly what I was looking for. My original goal was to find a similar choir music with roughly the same titles: I was desperately looking for (and still am!) 'The Blue and the Gray' sung by the Norman Luboff Choir. I have bought this record several times as a gift for friends. My own record I have lent to someone who has lost it meanwhile. From all the records I have bought none is available anymore. Do you think there is achance to find a new or used record of this? Regarding the Mormon Tabernacle Choir: I think it is a very good CD although not entirely as good as the mentiond one from the Norman Luboff Choir. May 14, 2007

It is a matter of personal taste

Some time, I like a song sung by a big choir and sometime I prefer a song sung by one or two singers with or without a merely invisible choir to support them. For example, The battle Hymn of the Republic is the perfect song to be sung by a choir. Technically speaking, the recording is good. In fact, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir obviously sings very well. However, I prefer a more classic style to listen and to sing along. On an other way, the choice of songs is very good. If you like the sound and the way of singing of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, buy it. June 16, 2005

Great overall, with three minor gripes

My one gripe is that the choir modified the words to the Chorus to "The Battle Cry of Freedom": "The Union Forever! Hoorah, boys, hoorah . . " becomes "Our country forever! Hoorah . . ." Now, speaking as a patriotic American, there's nothing wrong with the words "Our conuntry" in and of themselves, mind you; the problem is that they aren't the original lyrics. It's kinda like having an all-original '67 Mustang and replacing parts with those of an '84! The second minor kvetch is that they don't do all the verses to "Bonnie Blue Flag." Finally, "Marching Through Georgia" is conspicuous by its absence. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir obviously sings very well, and I'm sure they'd have done a bang-up job w/"MTG" had they attempted it. But enough sour grapes! Wonderful, uplifting choice of music overall!
May 26, 2005

More than just a collection of Civil War songs!

Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by The American Civil War. Many a day as a child, I would "re-create" famous Civil War battles with my plastic blue and gray soldiers. To further augment these moments, I would run upstairs and take a particular record album from my dad's collection and play it on my sister's portable record player. For a few hours, I'd be immersed in my very own world where columns of blue and gray troops marched and charged along to songs like "The Battle Cry of Freedom", "The Bonnie Blue Flag" and "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp". That album was "Songs of the Civil War" (the original album was entitled "Songs of the North and South" and contained only the first 13 tracks)...

Today - 25 or some-odd-years later - the arrangements on this record are forever etched into my mind as the standard for songs from that era. I'm no big fan of choir music - and I certainly wasn't way back when I was 7 or 8 years old(!). But these recordings manage, somehow, to strike a nerve in those who are given to romantic ideals and dreams - like the young men and boys who answered the call back in the Spring of 1861... and just like me when I first heard them.

When I was a child first listening to this album, my favorites were the heady anthems and marching songs. I wasn't yet capable, at such a young age, to appreciate the ballads. But still, they made sense to be played along to my little war games. As an adult, I grew to appreciate the ballads on this record such as the beautiful folk song, "Kathleen Mavourneen", and "He's Gone Away" - a song with as modern a message as any song recorded in recent years: the longing of two young lovers - seperated by circumstances beyond their control - for the return to the life they once had together. The way in which the Choir's male and female sections trade verses, to impart the meassage which both the boy and the girl in the song have for eachother, is very effective. I can see now that they made sense because they were/are songs about human experience... songs of loss, jubilation, yearning for loved ones, longing for peace. Songs which underscore the tragedy that was the Civil War, beautifully arranged and performed.

What the Mormon Tabernacle Choir achieve/d with these recordings is a strange paradox: The most violent episode in our nation's history approached with beauty and serenity. Something anyone can appreciate - apparently, even an 8 year-old boy. October 28, 2000

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