"We Praise You and Acknowledge You, O God"

A couple months ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 13 September.  The service was Matins (although not all of it is included in the video), but "We Praise You and Acknowledge You, O God" (LSB #941) was substituted for the "Te Deum."  I wrote about some musical features before, but I found a new one to note.

The second line in the first verse is "The Father everlasting, by all the earth adored," sung to this phrase from the tune "Thaxted":

The phrase "all the earth" is sung to notes of all different pitches (D C Bb), and this provides a sense of the entirety of that "all."

"We Praise You and Acknowledge You, O God"

I was looking at "We Praise You and Acknowledge You, O God" recently and noticed a few things, all within this phrase from the tune "Thaxted":

(This is the second phrase, but it's also repeated as the last phrase.)

In the first verse, the text here is "The Father everlasting, by all the earth adored."  "Everlasting" is sung with a melisma (A F Bb C D), and since it's drawn out, there's something of a sense of the word's meaning.

The text here in the third verse, addressed to Christ, is "Yet You, with boundless love, sought to rescue ev'ryone."  "Love" is sung with a melisma (Bb C), and because the word isn't limited to a single pitch, there's a musical representation of that "boundless."

In the fourth verse, the text is "Upholding earth and heaven by forces You command."  "Upholding" is sung to an ascending group of notes (D F G Bb), giving a sense of its meaning.  The melisma provides some emphasis.

When this musical phrase is repeated at the end of the fourth verse, the text is "In glory everlasting.  Amen, O Lord, amen!"  As above, "everlasting" is sung with a melisma (the same notes, even:  A F Bb C D), giving a sense of duration.