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

Friday, May 31, 2019

"Christ Has Arisen, Alleluia"

When I wrote about the Biblical sources for "Christ Has Arisen, Alleluia," I noticed a small connection between the text and the tune ("Mfurahini Haleluya").

What I noticed concerns the first musical phrase:


In the first verse, the text here is "Christ has arisen, alleluia," and in the fifth verse, the text is "Christ has arisen; He sets us free."  For both of these, the first two syllables of "arisen" are sung to an ascending interval (a fourth: C to F), musically giving a sense of the word's meaning.