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

Friday, June 14, 2019

"Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord"

I wrote about "Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord" a couple years ago, but during the Pentecost service this year, I found something else to note.

In the first verse, there are the lines "In holy faith Your Church unite; / From ev'ry land and ev'ry tongue."  The second of these two lines is sung to this phrase (from the tune "Komm, heiliger Geist, Herre Gott"):


"Land" and the second "ev'ry" are both sung with melismas (A Bb and G F E respectively), which gives a musical sense of the multitude of "ev'ry land and ev'ry tongue."