Critical opinion In his A Short History of English Church Music, Erik Routley traced John Stainer's The Crucifixion (1887) as the archetypal choral work deliberately written for amateur choirs that others imitated, and often diluted. However, in 1922, an American reviewer for The New Music Review wrote the following concerning Maunder's work: "An enthusiastic choirmaster once declared that the organists and choristers of the English-speaking world should unite to raise a monument to J. H. Maunder as a great benefactor of the human race in general and of church musicians in particular, because he combined in his voluminous writings for the church two factors which are both most highly to be commended and yet which are seldom found in the same composer, i.e., a good musical style and great technical facility. The music of Maunder is always well-written and thoroughly musical and devotional in feeling, and yet it is always easy to sing. Any amateur parish choir can attempt it, and yet it is worth the attention of even the best choral organizations. There is always a fresh and apparently inexhaustible flow of melodic ideas and the harmonic fabric is always full of interest and color and yet never unduly complicated. These remarks apply to all his writings, and may be made of the service [i.e. The Service in G] suggested for this day." In the 1955 edition of the Oxford Companion to Music Percy Scholes damns him with faint praise, writing that his ‘seemingly inexhaustible cantatas, Penitence, Pardon and Peace, and From Olivet to Calvary long enjoyed popularity, and still aid the devotions of undemanding congregations in less sophisticated areas.’ In 1966, Basil Ramsey wrote in the Musical Times of the LP recording of Olivet to Calvary by Barry Rose and the Guildford Cathedral Choir: "Here is a perplexing problem. Does this work warrant the preparation that has resulted in such an irresistible performance? Sweeping transformations can be made to music, however questionable its worth; and even poor words take on a superior air in such circumstances. The delusion will work for some and not others." According to Robert Young, author of The Anthem in England and America (1970), Maunder's music was probably more esteemed by volunteer church choir singers than his peers. Phillip Tolley, in the website of British Choirs on the Net, writes: Olivet to Calvary ‘is a fine example of music written for the late Victorian/early