Unless stated otherwise, my source for hymn texts and tunes is The Lutheran Service Book.

Friday, August 31, 2018

"O Christ, Our True and Only Light"

Earlier this year, one of the hymns I sang in church was "O Christ, Our True and Only Light."  I noticed a couple things about it.

It's sung to the tune "O Jesu Christe, wahres Licht," which is more or less the same title in German: "O Jesus Christ, true light."  Here's the first musical phrase:


In the fifth verse, the text here is "That they with us may evermore...."  (The "they" is "all those who walk apart" from the previous verse.)  "Evermore" is sung with a melisma (the last four notes).  Because the word is stretched out, there's something of a sense of its meaning.

There's a similar feature with the third musical phrase:


Still in the fifth verse, the text here is "And endless praise to You be giv'n."  This time, "praise" is sung with a melisma (the A and G in the second measure).  Because there's an extra syllable, there's something of a representation of the praise's being "endless."