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

Friday, December 22, 2017

"Lift up Your Heads, You Everlasting Doors"

Earlier this month I wrote a post about the first phrase of "Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates."  On the opposite page in the hymnal, there's the hymn "Lift up Your Heads, You Everlasting Doors," and I noticed that it has the same feature.

The first line is "Lift up your heads, you everlasting doors," the first part of which is sung to an ascending phrase (an arpeggiated C major spanning an octave):


There's an ascent in the tune ("Conrad"), which represents the "lift[ing] up" in the text.  A similar text ("Lift up your heads, you everlasting gates") is sung to the same musical phrase later in the first verse, and the third verse begins with "Who may ascend Mount Zion's holy hill," for which there's a similar feature (a rising melody to represent "ascend[ing]").