I have been blogging songs from this collection on and off for nearly a year. I can now make less annoying organ backings for traditional repertoire and have heard an awful lot of old hymn tunes. I have benefitted.
The problems of this collection are pretty clear. It is too cumbersome for practical use by musicians and its song choice is skinny outside traditional hymnody. The deliberate decision to avoid guitar chords is a scandalous lack of hospitality and pastoral thinking.
If you are a parish that has money to spare, needs new hymnals and wants a largely traditional repertoire this is the collection for you. If you don’t have money to spare use the free online resources for the public domain music (eg The Open Hymnal) and don’t forget small church music for backings.
If you have a more mixed palate stick to your As One Voice or Gather Australia and if you find a song you like from CWB II purchase it online to supplement them. You could plug gaps better than CWB by purchasing The Year of Grace Music Book for the McAuley/Connolly repertoire and This is the Time and Setting Hearts on Fire from Litmus for Michael Mangan.
Don’t forget Michael Herry’s free music and check out Hope Publishing.
I’m happy to have looked at these songs and the liturgical scholarship and editorial skill that has gone into the collection is immense, but if it ever intended to be a suburban parish hymnal it has failed. Just my opinion of course.