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

Friday, June 16, 2023

"Take My Life and Let It Be"

I haven't posted my recording of it yet, but in James Bastien's Great Hymns Arranged for Organ, the text "Take My Life and Let It Be" is paired with the tune "Hendon" (this is the tune it appears with in Lutheran Service Book #784).  When I was practicing it last month, I noticed a few features in the last two phrases:


In the first verse, the text here is "Let them flow in ceaseless praise, / Let them flow in ceaseless praise."  (The "them" are "my moments and my days" from the previous line.)  In the first phrase, the words "ceaseless praise" are sung with melismas (C Bb Bb A | A G), and since the words are stretched out, there's a sense of this duration.

In the third verse, the text here, referring to "my lips" in the previous line, is "Filled with messages from Thee, / Filled with messages from Thee."  In both phrases, "messages" is sung with a melisma (D C C Bb and A Bb G F, respectively), and since there's an extra syllable, there's a sense of the abundance of being "filled."