Sulzer's melody for Eitz Chayim Hi is unfamiliar to most congregations nowadays, as it necessitates a choir and the tune demands a wide tessitura. The theme is in the major, but modulates to the parallel minor at Hashiveinu. The chazzan enters and forcefully declares Chadesh Yamenu K'kedem to return us to the original tonality, but not before an unexpected (and deeply satisfying) chromatic pivot, an apposite metaphor for these paradoxical words "renew as of old". Finally the choir restates the first theme.