History

The hymn began life as a Swedish poem, "O store Gud" ("O great God"), written in 1885 by Carl Boberg (1859-1940), a Swedish poet, editor and later member of the Swedish parliament. Boberg is said to have written the nine original stanzas after being caught in a sudden summer thunderstorm near the Swedish coast and then watching it clear into calm countryside to the sound of distant church bells. The poem was first printed in a local newspaper in 1886 and was later joined to an old Swedish folk melody, appearing with that tune in a religious periodical in 1891.

The text then travelled a long road before reaching English. It was translated into German in 1907 and from there into Russian around 1912. British Plymouth Brethren missionary Stuart K. Hine (1899-1989) encountered the Russian version in 1931 while serving with his wife among villagers in the Carpathian Mountains of what is now western Ukraine, and was moved to make his own English paraphrase rather than a strict translation. He wrote the verses in stages over the following years and completed a fourth stanza in 1948 after ministering among displaced persons in post-war Britain. His English text, titled "How Great Thou Art," was finished and first published in his missionary magazine Grace and Peace in 1949; the year given above refers to this English text, not Boberg's 1885 Swedish original.

The hymn's popularity in the English-speaking world owes a great deal to the Billy Graham crusades of the 1950s, where gospel singer George Beverly Shea performed it, most famously at the 1955 Toronto crusade, helping it become one of the best-loved hymns in North America and, in time, across the world. Hine's English words remain in copyright, held by The Stuart Hine Trust and administered by Hope Publishing Company, which is why the lyrics cannot be reproduced on this page.

Performance

This recording was uploaded to St Peter's YouTube channel in 2022 under the title "How Great Thou Art | Beloved Christian Hymn with Lyrics | Timeless Worship Song" and runs 4 minutes 52 seconds. The video title does not name a performer, choir, or ensemble, so no attribution is given here beyond its presence on the channel.

Sources: hymnary.org · en.wikipedia.org · giamusic.com

About St Martin's Voices

The recording on this page is sung by St Martin's Voices, the professional vocal ensemble based at St Martin-in-the-Fields, the church on Trafalgar Square in London. One of the UK's most versatile professional choirs, they sing for services, concerts and broadcasts — including on BBC radio and Classic FM — and have released a number of acclaimed recordings.

Their hymn recordings are made freely available to Anglican parishes through the Church of England's A Church Near You Resource Hub, produced by Andrew Earis, Director of Music at St Martin-in-the-Fields, in collaboration with the Royal School of Church Music.