Meter: 8,6,8,6 (Common Meter)

Rhyme scheme: abab

Psalm 119 is a tour-de-force of acrostic proverbs: it is divided into 22 sections (one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet); within each section are eight verses each beginning with that letter. Almost every verse mentions the Bible, under a wealth of synonyms¹.

Isaac Watts did not provide a verse-by-verse rendition of Psalm 119: its length and lack of logical structure would keep such a paraphrase from being useful in our normal worship services. But he selected themes from scattered verses into several hymns of more usual length. These verses, emphasizing the lifelong value of the Word, are selected from three of those hymns.

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Melodic scheme: Through-composed, with echo and repeat.

My sources give neither the source in Beethoven's works, nor the arranger of this hymn. It is in style very similar to Lowell Mason's "Antioch," and may have been "suggested" by a snippet in one of Beethoven's works, but the melody and voice leading are in the style of the cultured version of a "fuging tune" from the early nineteenth century, and are probably altogether original.

Use:

No other hymn could perhaps so fitly be sung before Bible classes, although there are few occasions when it would not be fitting to praise the Word of God as a guide for all classes of humanity.

This also illustrates how a topically-appropriate hymn might be made by careful selection of stanzas from one or more metrical psalms. In many early Reformed congregations, it was the responsibility of the minister to select not only the psalms to be sung, but exactly which verses would be "read out." This was obviously necessary when so many parts of the psalms were apparently unsuitable for Christian worship; it may still be profitable at times.

Excursus: Fuging Tunes

Although of a style deprecated by most writers (and certainly not appropriate for many kinds of hymns that we should sing), the simple, joyful melody has wide appeal (even among younger children), and its simple but independent voice parts add a special appeal to children finding their place in the chorus. But is there any justification in the words of the text for separating out the voices like that?

Certainly, many horribly trite songs thoughtlessly separate the parts merely for cheap musical effect.² But Bach's famous rendering of the expression "All generations shall call me blessed" in his Magnificat uses fugal form to picture the different generations (separated by both time and tone) joining in chorus. Obviously the hymnal is not for symphonic choirs, and this chorus is also unusable.

Those extreme examples are clearly unacceptable, but for different reasons. Can a simple form of this kind of musical effect still be effective? Consider Watts' Come we that love the Lord, in which Robert Lowry's simplistic tune separates the parts at the words "and thus surround the throne." To me, the staggered voices suggest different groups of singers, apart from each other and from the hearer -- as if standing in a very large circle. In another example, Lo, what a glorious sight appears, the "fuging section" seems to fit several of the lines.

This tune is not too difficult to sing, but does its fragmentation of the text serve any useful purpose in conveying that text? I would say, somewhat tentatively, that the staggered voice leading does, like Bach's fugue, suggest the different generations and times mentioned in the text.

Notes:

¹For example, "Laws", "ordinances", "word", "way", "precepts", "testimonies", "judgments".

²E.g., A Beautiful Life ("Each day I'll do a golden deed"), a prime example of incoherent doggerel; its train of thought (if that even be an applicable concept) is shattered and splintered into four-syllable shards of phrase fragments, as a fine example of musical obfuscation.
This judgment, however harsh, will surely recommend itself to anyone who will take the trouble to transcribe the text of that unfortunate work as prose, then read it looking for any kind of connected sequence of ideas or thoughts. (I do not object to its individual words or phrases as false or irreverent; but I am persuaded that we ought to do our best to imitate the character of God's word in our own communication, and that must include imitating its coherence and logic.)