"Church of God, Elect and Glorious"

I wrote about a number of features in "Church of God, Elect and Glorious" last year, but when it was one of the hymns in the opening service for the academic year at Concordia University Wisconsin last month, I noticed something else.

The second verse ends with the lines "And all find fresh hope and purpose / In Christ Jesus crucified," and the phrase "Christ Jesus crucified" is sung to a melody that includes a number of overlapping cross inscriptions, musically portraying this "crucified" in a way.

The tune is "Abbot's Leigh."

"Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle"

Last year, I found a number of instances in "Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle" where the word "cross" in the text is highlighted by cross inscriptions in the tune ("Fortunatus New").  Here's the first musical phrase, which is also repeated as the third musical phrase:

The first line of the fourth verse is "Faithful cross, true sign of triumph," and the third line of the first verse is "Now above the cross, the trophy" (the sense is completed in the next line:  "Sound the loud triumphant lay").

There are also cross inscriptions in the last (sixth) musical phrase:

In the third verse, the text here is "On the cross His dying breath," completing the sense from the previous line:  "Like a lamb He humbly yielded."

"Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates" (LSB #341)

Many years ago, I wrote about a small feature in "Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates."  A few years ago, I found many more things to note.  The text is paired with two different tunes, but this post is about "Milwaukee" (#341 in The Lutheran Service Book).

Here's the first musical phrase:

In the fifth verse, the text here is "Redeemer, come and open wide" (the sense is continued into the next line:  "My heart to Thee...").  "Come" is sung with a melisma (G F#), giving something of a sense of movement.

Here's the second musical phrase:

In the fifth verse, the text here is "My heart to Thee; here, Lord, abide!"  As noted above, this continues the sense from the previous line:  "open wide / My heart to Thee."  Since "heart" is sung with a melisma (D E), there's something of a sense of the expansion of "open[ing] wide."  In the second verse, the text here is "His chariot is humility."  As if to reflect this humility, there's a musical descent.

The third musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "The King of kings is drawing near."  Since "drawing" is sung with a melisma (G E C#), there's a sense of movement.  There's a similar feature in the fifth verse, where the text here is "O enter with Thy grace divine" and "enter" is sung with a melisma (D G B).

The fifth musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "Life and salvation He doth bring."  There are multiple overlapping cross inscriptions here, illustrating that it's through His crucifixion and resurrection that Jesus brings us "life and salvation."

The sixth musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "Therefore rejoice and gladly sing."  "Rejoice" is sung with a melisma (A G F#), giving a sense of ebullience.  In the fourth verse, the text is "And new and nobler life begin."  "Nobler" is sung with a melisma (G F# E), giving something of a sense of the comparative nature of the adjective (more notes for a greater degree).

The eighth musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text is "Your joyful songs of praise" (it completes the sense from the previous line:  "To God the Father raise").  "Joyful" is sung with a melisma (E C A), giving a sense either of ebullience (as "rejoice" above) or of the abundance of being "-ful."  The same feature is also in the second verse, where the text is "Your grateful hymns of praise" and "grateful" is sung with the same melisma.

"Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates" (LSB #340)

Many years ago, I wrote about a small feature in "Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates."  A few years ago, I found many more things to note.  The text is paired with two different tunes, but this post is about "Macht hoch die Tür" (#340 in The Lutheran Service Book).

Here's the first musical phrase:

As I noted before, in the first line of the hymn, the phrase "lift up" is sung to an ascending interval (albeit only a minor third:  G to Bb), giving a sense of its meaning.

In the second verse, the text here is "A righteous Helper comes to thee."  "Comes" is sung with a melisma (Eb F), giving something of a sense of movement.

The third musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "The King of kings is drawing near."  Similar to the above, since "drawing" is sung with a melisma (Bb C A), there's a sense of movement.

The fifth musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "Life and salvation He doth bring."  The words "Life and salvation" are sung to two overlapping cross inscriptions, illustrating that it's through His crucifixion and resurrection that Jesus brings us "life and salvation."

In the third verse, the text is "The cloudless sun of joy is He," and "joy" is sung with a melisma (C Bb), giving a sense of ebullience.  In the fourth verse, the text is "So shall your Sov'reign enter in."  Like "comes" and "drawing" above, since "enter" is sung with a melisma (C Bb Ab), there's a sense of movement.

The same musical phrase is repeated as the sixth phrase, and in the first verse, the text here is "Therefore rejoice and gladly sing," and in the second, the text is "Therefore the earth is glad and sings."  "Gladly" and "glad" are both sung with melismas (C Bb Ab and C Bb, respectively), giving a sense of ebullience.

"All Glory Be to God Alone"

A couple years ago, I noticed a small feature in "All Glory Be to God Alone," sung to the tune "All' Ehr' und Lob."  Here's the last musical phrase:

The third verse ends with the line "To all the world Your grace extend."  "Grace" is sung with a melisma (G B), so there's a musical sense of its being "extend[ed]."  To some degree, there's a sense of this "extend[ing]" even in just the note values, since they increase from quarter notes to a half note and then to a whole note.

While looking over the hymn again, I noticed a cross inscription in the third musical phrase:

This corresponds to the text in the third verse, which is "You take the whole world's sin away."  Christ's crucifixion was the means by which this was effected.

"Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me"

Last month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 2 May.  The hymn was "Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me," and I noticed a few features to write about.  The hymn is sung to the tune "Warum sollt ich mich denn grämen."  Here's the first musical phrase:

The second verse begins with the line "When life's troubles rise to meet me" (the sense is completed later in the verse with the line "They will not defeat me").  The phrase generally ascends, giving a musical sense of that (metaphorical) "ris[ing]."

The second verse ends with the lines "He who knows / All my woes / Knows how best to end them," sung to these musical phrases:

The words "All my woes" are sung to notes of different pitches (Bb C A), and this variety provides something of a sense of the entirety of that "all."

The fourth verse ends with the lines "I am His because He gave me / His own blood / For my good, / By His death to save me."  As I indicated above, the last musical phrase contains a cross inscription, which corresponds to "By His death."  This musical figure points to the crucifixion and gives a bit more detail about Christ's death.

"Onward, Christian Soldiers"

I recently found a note about a couple features I noticed in "Onward, Christian Soldiers" a few years ago.  The hymn is sung to the tune "St. Gertrude."  Here are the last two musical phrases of the verse:

In the last verse, the text here is "This through countless ages / Men and angels sing" (the "this" is described in the previous lines:  "Glory, laud, and honor / Unto Christ, the king").  "Ages" is sung with a melisma (C Bb Ab Bb), musically giving a sense of the multitude of "countless."

The second half of the refrain is "With the cross of Jesus / Going on before," sung to these phrases:

The notes to which "cross of Jesus" is sung form a cross inscription, giving a musical picture of the text.

"Lord of All Good"

When I recorded a version of "Farley Castle" with recorders a couple months ago, I used the arrangement from The Lutheran Service Book #786 "Lord of All Good."  While going through the tune, I noticed a connection between it and the text.  The second phrase has a number of cross inscriptions.  It would be cumbersome to indicate them all; aside from the first C, any four sequential notes form this figure.

These cross inscriptions connect to the text in the second verse.  The line here is "Christ, by whose willing sacrifice we live."  Part of that "willing sacrifice" was the crucifixion.

"See, the Lord Ascends in Triumph"

A number of years ago, I wrote a post about some of the ascending musical phrases in "See, the Lord Ascends in Triumph."  While looking over the hymn more recently (but still a couple years ago), I found a slightly more significant feature to note:  there's a cross inscription in the last phrase of "Rex gloriae," the tune to which the hymn is sung.

In the second verse, the text here is "He by death has crushed His foes."  The cross inscription in the tune illustrates by what sort of death Christ has "crushed His foes."

"Behold a Host, Arrayed in White"

Over the last two years, I noted some features in "Behold a Host, Arrayed in White," sung to the tune "Den store hvide flok."  Musically, the tune is divided into three sections, and all of the features I noticed occur at the end of either the first or third section.  While these two sections aren't exactly the same, the last three phrases are, so I made only one excerpt of notation:

At the end of the first section of the second verse, there are the lines "Those martyrs stand, / A priestly band, / God's throne forever near."  "Forever" is sung with a melisma (F# E F# E), musically giving a sense of duration.  In the same spot in the third verse, there are the lines "Extol the Lord, / Who with His Word / Sustained you on the way."  Here, "sustained" is sung with a melisma (D E F# G), which gives something of a sense of its meaning (prolonged, to use a different word).

At the end of the last section (the end of the hymn), there are these lines in the third verse:  "Lift up one voice; / Let heav'n rejoice / In our Redeemer's song!"  "Lift up" is sung to an ascending group of notes (F# G A), illustrating its meaning, and "lift" is even sung with a melisma to emphasize this.  "Redeemer's" is sung to a cross inscription, illustrating that it's through Christ's crucifixion and resurrection that we are redeemed.  In fact, at the end of each section, there are three cross inscriptions in the tune, but this instance has the strongest connection between the tune and the text.

I also noticed a purely textual feature:  in the line "They now serve God both day and night" in the first verse, "day and night" is a merism.

"By Grace I'm Saved"

About a year ago, I happened to notice a feature in "By Grace I'm Saved."  It's sung to the tune "O dass ich tausend Zungen hätte" (there are two hymn tunes in LSB with this title; this one was written by Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel), and the first phrase (repeated as the third phrase) has a cross inscription:

The first line of the first verse is "By grace I'm saved, grace free and boundless."  "By grace I'm saved" is what's sung to the cross inscription, illustrating that it's through Christ's death and resurrection - not by our own works or merit - that we are saved.

The third line of the second verse is "God in His love sent our Redeemer."  "God in His love" is what's sung to the cross inscription here, pointing out the connection between God's love and the crucifixion.  As Romans 5:8 says:  "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

"The Will of God Is Always Best"

A little over a year ago, I found a few things in "The Will of God Is Always Best," sung to the tune "Was mein Gott will" (Isorhythmic).

All of the music-related things I noticed occur in the same phrase, although it appears multiple times throughout the hymn:

The first two lines of the hymn are "The will of God is always best / And shall be done forever."  The second of those lines is sung to the phrase above, and "forever" is sung with a melisma (A G F# G), musically giving a sense of duration.

The first two lines of the fourth verses are "When life's brief course on earth is run / And I this world am leaving."  Again, the second of those lines is sung to the phrase above, and "leaving" is sung with a melisma (G F# G) for a sense of movement (although it's a bit more metaphorical).

In the third verse, the third and fourth lines are "When Satan sorely troubles me, / Then do not let me waver."  Here, "waver" is sung with that same melisma (G F# G), so while it's negated, there's a musical sense of its meaning.

In looking over the hymn again in order to write this post, I noticed that this phrase has a cross inscription.  I think its only connection to the text appears at the very end of the hymn (and while the lines here occupy the same musical space as those quoted above, there's an additional line break):  "From sin and hell, / And death as well, / By You the victo'ry reaping."  That last line is what's sung to the phrase above, and the cross inscription corresponds to "You the vict'ry."  It is through Christ's crucifixion and resurrection that we have that victory.

Previously, I'd also noticed a night/day merism at the end of the second verse:  "By night and day / God is my stay; / He never sleeps nor slumbers."  This is drawn from Psalm 121 and even maintains the alliteration ("sleeps nor slumbers") which is present in all of the English translations I referenced and which provides a sense of the constancy of God's care.

Messiah: No. 44 Hallelujah

The text is from Revelation 19:6:  "Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, 'Hallelujah!  For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.'" Revelation 11:15:  "Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.'" and Revelation 19:16:  "On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of Lords."

A few of the "and He shall reign" phrases inscribe the cross figure, apparently to show that through Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, God has power over death:

"Jesus Came, the Heavens Adoring"

Two years ago, I noticed a feature in "Jesus Came, the Heavens Adoring," specifically with regard to the second musical phrase from the tune "Sieh, hier bin ich" ("Behold, here I am"):

There's a cross inscription in the tune, and this connects with the text in the third verse:  "Bringing news of sins forgiv'n."  Jesus' death on the cross is what gives us this forgiveness of sins.

Messiah: No. 23 He was despised and rejected of men

The text is from Isaiah 53:3:  "He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide the faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not." and from Isaiah 50:6:  "I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting."

An-other thing I didn't notice until I started following along with the notation is the cross-like figure inscribed here with "he was despised."

I first ran across this cross-inscribing feature in John Eliot Gardiner's Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, where he points out how Bach does this in Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4:

I'm not sure if it was Handel's intent here (I don't know how well-known this cross-inscription technique was in the 1700s), but it does provide an example of one of the forms in which Christ was despised - the crucifixion.

"Jesus Loves Me"

Back in August, I realized something about the refrain in "Jesus Loves Me."  The tune, which is also titled "Jesus Loves Me," contains two cross inscriptions:

The text is:

Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.

"Jesus loves me" and "Bible tells me" are what are sung to these cross inscriptions, so there's a musical illustration of how "Jesus loves me" and what the "Bible tells me," namely the crucifixion.

"Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain"

Back in September when I was looking up the Bible verses cited for "Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain,"  I noticed a small feature at the beginning of the fourth verse.

The first line is "They that drink shall live forever," sung to this musical phrase from the tune "Naar mit öie":

The "forever" is sung with a melisma (F# E F# D); since it's drawn out, there's a musical sense of duration.

In writing this post, I noticed that those particular notes form a cross inscription, which is also repeated in the third phrase of the tune.  I think the only connection between it and the text appears in the third phrase of the third verse:  "Here the guilty [may find] free remission."  "Remission" is sung to this cross inscription, and it is Jesus' death on the cross that provides us this "remission."

"O Christ, Who Called the Twelve"

Early this year, one of the hymns I sang in church was "O Christ, Who Called the Twelve" (sung to the tune "Terra beata" [Latin: "prosperous earth"]).  I noticed two small things about it.

The first two lines are "O Christ, who called the Twelve / To rise and follow You," sung to this musical phrase:

"To rise" is sung to an ascending phrase with a melisma (E F# G), so there's a musical representation of that "ris[ing]."

The third verse ends with the lines "And help us climb the lonely hills / Where love is crucified."  The second of these two lines is sung to this phrase:

There's a cross inscription to represent "crucified."

"All Mankind Fell in Adam's Fall"

When I transcribed "All Mankind Fell in Adam's Fall" last year, I noticed a few instances where portions of the text that mention the fall into sin correspond to descending phrases in the tune ("Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein").  As a side note, the tune is oddly formatted.  There are only four measures, but each of these has either twelve or fourteen beats.  This gave me some problems in making examples of the notation.

"All mankind fall in Adam's fall" (in the first verse) and "As by one man all mankind fell" (in the fifth) are sung to the first musical phrase:

The end of this phrase descends, musically representing the fall into sin that's mentioned in the text.

And "From one to all the curse descends" (in the first verse) is sung to the third phrase:

(I didn't notice this until I made my own notation [because it's divided in the hymnal], but there's a cross inscription here.  I don't think it has any connection to the text though.)

Here, the descent in the tune represents "the curse descend[ing]."

"How Great Thou Art"

Back in August, "How Great Thou Art" was mentioned in the sermon on Worship for Shut-Ins (back when it was still called Worship for Shut-Ins), and I noticed something about the last "How great Thou art" in the refrain.  "How great Thou art" is sung twice to this phrase (from the tune "O store Gud"):

There's a cross inscription in the last four notes, so this particular "How great Thou art" seems to point to Jesus' death on the cross for the sake of all sinners as one specific example of that greatness.  This is also described in the third verse of the hymn:

But when I think that God, His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in -
That on the cross my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin;