"Fairest Lord Jesus"

Registration:

Upper:  00 7856 321

Lower:  00 5432 222

Pedal:  44

Played with the "mellow" drawbar organ sound on my Hammond SKX, with the Hammond XPK-130G pedals

"Beautiful Savior"

On Worship Anew this week, Pastor Ahlersmeyer mentioned and sang some of "Beautiful Savior" in his sermon.  I noticed a few features in the fourth and fifth lines, sung to these phrases from the tune "Schönster Herr Jesu":

In the second verse, the text here is "Jesus is fairer, / Jesus is purer," and in the third verse, the text is "Jesus shines brighter, / Jesus shines purer."  "Fairer," "brighter," and both "purer"s are all sung with melismas (Bb G Ab for the first two, Ab F G for the second two).  These articulations emphasize these comparative adjectives and comparative adverbs.  It's as if there are more notes to indicate these higher degrees.

"Beautiful Savior"

Near the end of May, in catching up in my reading, I read the Portals of Prayer devotion for March 28.  The prayers for that particular month employed verses from various hymns, and the prayer for that day was the fourth verse of "Beautiful Savior":

Beautiful Savior,
Lord of the nations,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor,
Praise, adoration
Now and forevermore be Thine!

While reading this, I could hear the melody in my head, and I became curious about how "forevermore" was sung with the tune, so I lookt up the hymn in my hymnal.

The tune to which "Beautiful Savior" is sung is titled "Schönster Herr Jesu."  A brief sidenote:  "Schönster Herr Jesu" is basically the same sentiment as "Beautiful Savior," just in German.  "Schönster" is actually a superlative, so it'd be "Most beautiful Lord Jesus."

I went through the text and the music and confirmed the suspicion I'd had while reading the fourth verse:  "forevermore" is the longest word in the hymn when counting by note values.

Here's the musical phrase to which "Now and forevermore be Thine" is sung, with the notes to which "forevermore" is sung indicated in brackets:

"Forevermore" encompasses a quarter note, a dotted half note, an-other quarter note, and a half note, which - altogether - last seven beats.  The word in the hymn that describes the longest period of time lasts for a longer number of beats than any other word.  The second highest is "adoration" in the previous line, with six beats (four quarter notes and one half note).