The Anthem, in the post-Reformation church music of England was initially the term given to a choral work with an English biblical text.  By the end of the 17th century it begins to take on Italian stylistic elements and becomes a cantata for solo voices, choir and orchestra.  The anthem "O sing unto the Lord" presented here, based on words of the 96th Psalm, is a particularly beautiful example of the transformation of the traditional and the modern style into a unified whole.