"Only-Begotten, Word of God Eternal"

A couple years ago, I noticed some features in "Only-Begotten, Word of God Eternal," sung to the tune "Iste confessor."  Here's the first musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "Only-begotten, Word of God eternal," and in the fourth verse, the text is "God in three persons, Father everlasting."  "Eternal" and "everlasting" are both sung with a melisma (G F E D and F G F E D, respectively), and since the words are drawn out, there's a sense of duration.

Here's the second musical phrase:

In the third verse, the text here is "By Your past blessings, by your present bounty."  Here, "bounty" is sung with a melisma (C B A), providing a sense of that abundance.

The fourth verse ends with the lines "To You be praises, thanks, and adoration, / Glory forever," and the last line is sung to this musical phrase:

As with "eternal" and "everlasting" above, "forever" is sung with a melisma (E F E D), giving a sense of duration.

"Christ High-Ascended, Now in Glory Seated"

A couple years ago, I noticed a handful of features in "Christ High-Ascended, Now in Glory Seated," sung to the tune "Iste confessor."  Here's the second musical phrase:

In the fourth verse, the text here is "Christ with His people evermore remaining."  "Remaining" is sung with a melisma (B C B A), and since it's stretched out, there's a sense of the duration of "evermore."

The third musical phrase:

In the third verse, the text here is "To win disciples out of ev'ry nation."  "Nation" is sung with a melisma (A G F), giving a sense of amount, for "ev'ry."

In the fourth verse, the text is "Christ to all ages gloriously reigning."  Similar to the above, "ages" is sung with a melisma (C Bb A), giving a sense of the entirety of "all."

In the fifth verse, the text is "Filled with His Spirit, love and pow'r receiving."  Here, "Spirit" is sung with a melisma (C Bb A), giving a sense of the abundance that "filled" implies.

[I re-used notation excerpts I made for writing about "Lord of Our Life," which is sung to the same tune.  Both appear in the same key in The Lutheran Service Book, although the bar lines appear in different places.  "Lord of Our Life" #659 has four beats per measure where "Christ High-Ascended, Now in Glory Seated" #840 has eight.]

"Lord of Our Life"

I wrote a post about "Lord of Our Life" a couple years ago, but while looking at the hymn again recently, I found an-other small point to note.  The hymn is sung to the tune "Iste confessor."  Here's the second musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "Star of our night and hope of ev'ry nation."  "Nation" is sung with a melisma (C B A), and because there's an extra syllable and because each syllable is sung to a different pitch, there's a sense of that "ev'ry."

"Lord of Our Life"

A little over a year ago, I found a few things in "Lord of Our Life," sung to the tune "Iste confessor."  In the second verse, there are the lines "See how Your foes their banners are unfurling / And with great spite their fiery darts are hurling."  The second of those lines is sung to this musical phrase:

"Spite" is sung with a melisma (C Bb), musically giving a sense of degree (for "great").  I wouldn't argue too much for this, but "hurling" is also sung with a melisma (A G F), giving something of a sense of movement.