"The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath... for in six days God made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased and was refreshed." I was rather surprised the first time I opened up the score for V'sham'ru. Singing this tune every week in shul, I had always assumed it was composed in a minor key, but this isn't exactly what Louis Lewandowski wrote. In general, the Western Ashkenaz nusach typically uses Adonai Malach (the major-sounding mode) much more extensively than the Eastern European nusach, which favours Ahava Rabba (the Phrygian dominant). Lewandowski's Kabbalat Shabbat service reflects this trend e.g. his Friday night Bar'chu tune is in the major, which seems somewhat strange to us nowadays. This is a fascinating glimpse into what happens when choral pieces lose their harmonic setting, and congregational singing of the melody line becomes de rigueur. As inheritors of a patchwork of traditions, it makes some sense why we might accidentally recast V'sham'ru into a minor key, but here it is, with its original harmony.