Amazing Grace: Important Symbol of Christian World

Amazing Grace is among the music compositions most loved by the English language world, particularly by the Americans. It can be heard in most churches, beautifully sung by mixed choirs, it is performed by solo performers at various occasions – contests, auditions – at stage, it can be heard at the homes of common people at festive holidays, religious and not. And it could be even heard sung by the President of the U.S. Barack Obama in public (which was later featured by Coldplay in their song Kaleidoscope). All in all, they say the approximate number of times the hymn is performed annually reaches 10 million. Why so?

Barack Obama sings Amazing Grace (2015)

Digging into the history behind the piece, I realized that it has some of the elements that could not but make it popular among the people. Based on the words and story of the English poet John Newton, the hymn has become a universal work to encompass what people value in life. According to the author’s experience where he passed the way from sinning to redemption (J. Newton was in slave trading for a long time), it becomes obvious that even the toughest hardships in life can be resolved with the help of God and faith. The moment Newton begged for God’s mercy in a violent storm became the start of his spiritual conversion.

The message of the spiritual is so emblematic that the composition crossed the line of religious music pretty fast and welled over into the secular genre. Thousands of all possible music arrangements appeared with time and the interest to Amazing Grace has not run out of steam yet. Arrangers tried adding most unusual and unexpected elements to the hymnal, making it sound a bit jazzy, or a bit soulful, for example. The variety of instrumental combinations for which the piece was score is also surprisingly extensive. Some things will always be valued, it seems.