Unless stated otherwise, my source for hymn texts and tunes is The Lutheran Service Book.

Friday, July 20, 2018

"Built on the Rock"

Sometime last year I noticed that in "Built on the Rock" (sung to the tune "Kirken den er et gammelt hus"), "falling" in the line "Even when steeples are falling" is sung to a descending melody, which musically illustrates the "falling."  Since it's only two notes (D to C) and only an interval of a second, I initially didn't regard this as significant enough to write about.  When I watched the One LSB Hymn a Week video of it though, I realized that (in The Lutheran Service Book arrangement, at least) there's a larger descending phrase ("larger" in terms of number of notes and musical breadth) below this.

Here's the melody for "Even when steeples are falling" (the second phrase of the tune):


And here's one of the harmony parts:


In the last two measures, coincident with "falling," there's a descent spanning a major third (G to Eb).