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

Monday, March 30, 2020

Messiah: No. 46 Since by man came death

The text is from 1 Corinthians 15:21-22:  "21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.  22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."

If I posted an example of the notation for this, I'd end up posting the whole section, which I'd rather not do.  There's a distinction made between "Since by man came death" (grave) and "By man came also the resurrection" (allegro).  Later, the same is done for "For as in Adam all die" (grave again) and "Even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (allegro again).

It wasn't specified in the version of the notation that I looked through, but in the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields recording, these parts are also differentiated by dynamics.  The grave parts are piano (perhaps even pianissimo; I couldn't understand the words until I read them), and the allegro parts are forte.