Perfect rejoicing

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice." That's St. Paul, of course, writing to the Philippians (chapter 4, verse 4) from prison. 

I can't hear that text and the verses that follow it without also hearing this 16th century English motet. It begins with an upward leap of a perfect fourth on the word "rejoice." 

Why a "perfect" fourth? It may be one of those things we were just told to accept in music theory class. There are major and minor seconds, thirds, sixth and sevenths, but fourths and fifths -- they may be augmented or diminished, but they are never major or minor. They're perfect, and one is the inversion of the other: C to F is a fourth, F to the C above is a fifth. And C to C, of course, is an octave (despite four and five adding up to nine, but that has something to do with counting the F twice. Which reminds me of certain math errors I've made while knitting in the round, or spacing buttonholes. Or something.) The fifth above is the second overtone, so there's another layer of math here, and then there's the thing where you're going from the dominant back home to the tonic. It's the "Here Comes the Bride" interval. It holds a certain majesty. 

(If you'd like to cite contrary examples in music, if a perfect fourth has an entirely different character for you, or you say it functions differently in some dissonant or atonal music of the early or late 20th century, well, that's your problem. Your sorry little problem. Excuse me.)

A few years ago, a visiting English choral clinician, Tim Brown, formerly of Clare College, Cambridge,  told our St. Matthew Passion rehearsal at my church that a singer could never sing a perfect fourth high enough. You had to aim high to get it exactly right -- to make it perfect in sound as well as in theory. That little piece of advice, offered as an aside to whatever it was he was trying to get us to do with the Bach, has stuck with me, so that when I see one of those things coming (or used to see one, when we could still sing in choirs) I aim high. Maybe with my eyebrows lifted, maybe -- and more to the point -- by making plenty of space to hold the sound, plenty of room for it to resonate brightly in exactly the perfect place. 

It makes perfect sense to me that a composer would set the word rejoice as a perfect, upward-moving fourth. It's a call, a sit up and pay attention gesture. It lifts spirits to say, to sing, "rejoice!"

Are there other instances of hymns and sacred songs rejoicing on a perfect fourth? In Advent hymnody there's "Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers." Tomorrow in our mid-week worship services we'll sing the Advent hymn "Awake, Awake and Greet the New Morn," with a dancing fourth on both "awakes." Other examples?  It's 9:30 at night and the hymnal's at the other end of the house. 

Paul rejoiced from prison and exhorted his readers to virtues beyond rejoicing, or perhaps rooted in rejoicing: gentleness and/or moderation (depending on translation); don't worry; pray and give thanks. Trust that the Lord is, in 16th century lingo,  "e'en at hand." 

And now I've thought of another hymn that begins with an upward leap of a perfect fourth: "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," which I think is one of the most beautiful tunes ever. 

Somewhere in time and space, Christ on the cross met Paul in prison, and Paul rejoiced. Christ meets us too, from that cross. Perfect rejoicing.