"Consolation" (TLH #149)

I transposed this from Ab major to G major because I don't really like the flat keys (and besides, in my opinion, G major is the best key for mandolin).

In The Lutheran Hymnal, hymn #149 is "Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain."  The Lutheran Service Book uses this same tune for its "Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain" (#435), but there it has the title "Naar mit öie."  LSB also has a tune called "Consolation" (probably best known as the tune for "The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns," LSB #348), but it's an entirely different tune!  I used the title "Consolation" in the video, but since my blog is mostly focused on LSB, I'm tagging it with "Naar mit öie."

"Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain"

Back in September when I was looking up the Bible verses cited for "Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain,"  I noticed a small feature at the beginning of the fourth verse.

The first line is "They that drink shall live forever," sung to this musical phrase from the tune "Naar mit öie":

The "forever" is sung with a melisma (F# E F# D); since it's drawn out, there's a musical sense of duration.

In writing this post, I noticed that those particular notes form a cross inscription, which is also repeated in the third phrase of the tune.  I think the only connection between it and the text appears in the third phrase of the third verse:  "Here the guilty [may find] free remission."  "Remission" is sung to this cross inscription, and it is Jesus' death on the cross that provides us this "remission."

"Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain"

A couple weeks ago, I transcribed "Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain," which reminded me of something I'd noticed awhile ago and needed to get around to writing about.

This is just a small point, but - when the text is sung to the tune "Naar mit öie" - the line "Sinners, ruined by the fall" descends.  Here's the melody for that line:

There's a fall in the text, and a literal fall in the tune.  The melody there spans an octave (D to D).