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

Friday, June 6, 2025

"Awake, My Heart, with Gladness"

A couple years ago, I wrote a post about some small features in "Awake, My Heart, with Gladness," but when it was the hymn in a Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service last month (on 1 May), I found a couple more.

The hymn is sung to the tune "Auf, auf, mein Herz."  Here's the fourth musical phrase:


In the third verse, the text here is "The joy within my heart" (continuing the sense from the previous line:  "Now nothing ever saddens").  "Joy" is sung with a melisma (B C#), lending a sense of this ebullience.

In the sixth verse, the text is "Whate'er He passes through" (again continuing the sense from the previous line:  "My Lord will leave me never").  "Whate'er" is sung with a melisma, and each note is a different pitch (A B C#).  Both aspects of this articulation provide a sense of breadth.

+++

I wrote about the Biblical sources for the hymn text before, but I also noticed that the line "He who is strong to save" in the second verse bears some resemblance to part of Psalm 31:2:  "Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me!"