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

Friday, April 28, 2023

"Awake, My Heart, with Gladness"

One of the hymns in the Easter service I attended was "Awake, My Heart, with Gladness," and I noticed a few interesting features in it.  The hymn is sung to the tune "Auf, auf, mein Herz."  Here's the second musical phrase:


The fourth verse begins with the lines "Now hell, its prince, the devil, / Of all their pow'r are shorn."  The second of those lines is sung to the above phrase, and "all" and "pow'r" are both sung with melismas (B C# and C# B, respectively), musically giving a sense of that entirety.

The third and fourth lines of the fifth verse are "Though bitter war it [the world] wages, / Its work is all in vain."  The second line is sung to the same phrase as above (the first and second musical phrases are repeated as the third and fourth), and here too, "all" is sung with a melisma (C# B), giving a sense of entirety.

The penultimate line of the sixth verse is "He [Christ] shatters hell's grim thrall," sung to this musical phrase:


"Shatters" is sung with a melisma (F# G# A), and this articulation provides a sense of the word's meaning.