The feast of August 15 is quite ancient: there was an observance at Jerusalem on that day called the "Day of Mary Theotokos". Around 500, it was transferred to the Marian shrine at Gethsemane where the tomb of our Lady was (and is) venerated. There it became a feast of the Dormition ("koimesis") commemorating the death of Mary. The feast spread from Jerusalem, and the emperor Maurice (d. 602) promulgated it to the whole empire.

The interpretation of the dormition as an assumption (analepsis) appears in homilies as early as 550: e.g., in Theoteknos, bishop of Livias, a city on the left bank of the Jordan, facing Jericho.

About a year and a half ago, I attended a workshop at St. Paul's, Cambridge, on "Music Since Vatican II," conducted by Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth, Chair of ICEL. Following his presentation, there was a question/answer session. The FIRST question asked was "How do we stop parishes from using Hail Mary, Gentle Woman?" Msgr. Wadsworth's reply was that it is just the type of hymn we need rid of!

Btw, I used to write a blog called Hymnography Unbound. I haven't updated (or, frankly, visited) it in a while, but one of the things I was trying to do there was to establish the principles of productive hymn criticism.

That way, we don't just flim flam back and forth from one ephemeral expression of the faith to another all the time.

I tried to keep the blog ordinarily positive. On the sidebar, iirc, it shows much larger stats for posts on "good hymns" and "great hymns" than for "bad hymns."

I feel that people allow themselves to give a gut reaction thumbs up/ thumbs down regarding hymn texts more than they do for most art. To me, it should be the reverse.

Because hymn texts are words that the faithful are asked to sing, it seems to me that they should be most carefully examined.

No, no, I wasn't responding to you in particular.

Visceral reactions are often a useful starting point, and I know from many other conversations that you think things through.

I normally want to have a considered reaction, which would involve experiencing a piece so that the effects of local particulars (poor leadership by musicians, poor acoustics, a congregation dominated by addled demographic groups, et cet.) are diluted in my assessment.

(One thing I will say about Anthem, my favored target for repeated beatings, is that anyone who willingly programs it annihilates his/her credibility to object to classical English poetic/lyrical vocabulary, syntax and usage on the basis of confusion or mis/un-comprehension . . . . I am pretty sure a 4th grader could better explain the the intended meaning of the Lord's Prayer in classical English form than Anthem.)