Today during my church music class, discussing how almost every hymn in Lutheran Service Book (and any good, standard hymnal) points to the eternal, my professor brought up "Jerusalem the Golden" (LSB No. 672). Sliced from a lengthy original version called "The World Is Very Evil" (available in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, No. 534), John Mason Neale's poem paraphrases Bernard of Cluny's verses starting with "Hora novissima." Its exclusive tune EWING matches of the English rendering so well, but I unearthed another uncanny (or perhaps canny?) feature today.
In its sixth phrase, where the tune leaps to the high E (I hope all versions are in C Major!) a key word rests on it for accent. Disjunct melodic tones create the effect of an accent, and this specific one heightens the sixth line just as Neale crafted it: "And NOW we live in hope;" "And LIFE in fullest glow;" "What JOYS await us there;" and "Have CONQUERED in the fight." For. Every. Verse.
See for yourself: http://www.hymnary.org/hymn/ELH1996/534
Composers of hymn tunes, chew on this with your bedtime snack (milk and honey grahams would be an apt choice).
No comments:
Post a Comment