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

Friday, October 13, 2023

"Come, Thou Bright and Morning Star"

Earlier this year, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 6 February.  The hymn was "Come, Thou Bright and Morning Star," and I noticed a few features in it.

The second line of the second verse is "Falling soft on barren places" (it describes "Thy grace" in the previous line).  It's sung to this musical phrase from the tune "Morgenglanz der Ewigkeit":


The phrase generally descends, musically illustrating that "falling."

The second verse ends with the lines "Bless Thy flock from Thy rich store / Evermore," sung to these phrases:


"Evermore" is sung to notes with a total of eight beats, and this musical length mirrors that duration.

In the third verse, the text here is "Let us truly rise ere yet / Life has set."  The line "Life has set" is sung to a descending phrase (E D C), giving something of a sense of that "set[ting]," although it's used more metaphorically here.