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

Friday, September 29, 2023

"May God Embrace Us with His Grace" (LW #288)

I wrote two posts about "May God Bestow on Us His Grace" as it appears in The Lutheran Service Book (#823 and #824), but it appears in a different translation as "May God Embrace Us with His Grace" in Lutheran Worship (#288).  The original hymn is by Martin Luther.  The LSB translation is by Richard Massie, and the LW translation is by F. Samuel Janzow.  While the tune ("Es wolle Gott uns gnädig sein") is the same, albeit in a different key, it emphasizes different parts of the LW translation.

Here are the first two musical phrases, which are also repeated as the third and fourth phrases:


In the second verse, the text here is:
All people living on his globe,
Praise God with exultation!
The world puts on a festive robe
And sings its jubilation
"Exultation" and "jubilation" are both sung with a melisma (C A G D F G E), musically giving a sense of this ebullience.

Near the end of the third verse, there's the line "May people ev'rywhere be won" (the sense is completed in the next line:  "To love and praise you truly"), sung to this phrase:


The three syllables of "ev'rywhere" are each sung to a different pitch (D A G), and this provides a sense of breadth.

The first verse ends with the lines "Let Jesus' healing power be / Revealed in richest measure, / Converting ev'ry nation."  The last line is sung to this phrase:


"Nation" is sung with a melisma, with each syllable sung to a different pitch (F G E), and these features give a sense of number or breadth (for "ev'ry").