Last month I spent a week in the Netherlands on a speaking tour related to two of my books, Political Visions and Illusions and Citizenship Without Illusions. On the last two days of my stay, one of my hosts and I twice visited the Grote Kerk in Nijkerk. Here is the story:
What is a Mannenzang? There is a Dutch tradition, apparently not more than three decades old, of mass gatherings of men in churches, and perhaps elsewhere, to sing psalms and hymns together. The sound of huge numbers of tenor and bass voices praising God in song exudes a certain power that has to be experienced first hand for a full appreciation. In the evening of saturday, 19 September, Samuel and I made our way into Nijkerk's historic Grote Kerk for a mannenzang. I would be hard pressed to estimate the number of men present, but the building was completely filled for the event. The assembled men sang six psalms according to the Genevan melodies and six hymns. These were interspersed with commentary by Dr. Paul Jan Visser. Martin Mans was at the organ, Pascal van de Velde on the trumpet, Wibrand van Norel on the timpani, and Jan Verhoef directing from the front.
I recorded two of the songs we sang together, including one that will be familiar to English-speaking Christians. Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven is one of my favourites, written by Henry Francis Lyte in 1834, with accompanying melody by Sir John Goss. The words are loosely based on Psalm 103. In Dutch this becomes Prijs, mijn ziel, de Hemelkoning, whose first stanza I recorded below:
