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

Friday, September 9, 2022

"How Great Thou Art"

Recently, I found a note from a few years ago about a couple features I'd noticed in "How Great Thou Art."  Both are in the third musical phrase of the tune "O store Gud":


In the second verse, the text here is "When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur," and in the fourth verse, the text is "Then I shall bow in humble adoration."  At the end of the first few words of each line ("When I look down" and "Then I shall bow"), there's a drop of a third (F to D, which is also the lowest pitch in the phrase), and this mirrors the descents of "down" and "bow[ing]."