Successions - Genesis chapter 5

 This chapter has a patterned form -- does the music imitate the pattern? Probably but to what extent?

The first 2 verses recapitulate creation. See the post on Noah for the first verse. Verse 3 then begins the pattern. 3-5 Adam, 6-8 Seth, 9-11 Enosh, 12-14 Cainan, 15-17 Mahalaleel, 18-20 Jared, 21-24 Enoch -- the exception,  25-27 Methuselah, 28-31 Lamech, another exception, -- and we have caught up to where we started.

If I presented this all at once, it would be hard to see for the non-musician and hard to hear for the musician. I know this because, even as a musician, I have to work to hear the text and its music, and it's a work of the ear, like poetry -- and demands something I don't easily give, a kind of energy that takes the music off the page and makes something of it.

And what is to be made of a history of births? Here is the first. 

Genesis 5:3-5

This first section has several phrases that are unique. It's preamble is longer. It is the only one that sings of image and likeness. The later groups truncate the opening statement. Several patterns recur. The first section to the atnah, the rest point, of each group of 3 (or 4) verses, always begins on the tonic and has varying reciting notes. Each of the these verses beginning with verse 6 and following the rest point is brief and identical throughout in its quick return to the tonic - saying, 'and he had xxx', on the notes A g# e, the name of the son. The second verse movement to the rest point is again variable for each section, but the return to the tonic, A f g# e is identical to the phrase above, bars 13-16. The third verse of each group exhibits additional variation for each story, but every group except that of Enoch, ends with the same three notes as in bar 21-22 above. 

So in effect, the ear of the listener would easily identify the variable verse parts, and also the repetitive ones. The result will be as if each group of verses had three refrains. Perhaps the listeners would join in by the end. -- and sometimes with a smile. Enoch and Noah stand out as different. Whole chapter is here.