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

Friday, August 18, 2023

"Heavenly Hosts in Ceaseless Worship"

A couple years ago, I noticed some features in "Heavenly Hosts in Ceaseless Worship," sung to the tune "Love's Light."  Here's the first musical phrase:


In the second verse, the text here is "All creation, all redemption" (the sense is completed in the following line:  "Join to sing the Savior's worth").  "Creation" is sung with a melisma (D F F D), and "redemption" is sung to notes of all different pitches, spanning a fifth (F A C).  Both of these articulations provide a sense of the breadth or entirety of those "all"s.

Here's the last musical phrase:


In the first verse, the text here is "Fall before the Father's throne."  Generally, the melody descends, so there's a sense of this "fall[ing]."

In the second verse, the text is "And to everlasting days!"  "Everlasting" is sung with a melisma (A F G F E), and since the word is stretched out, there's a sense of that duration.