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

Friday, December 1, 2017

"Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates"

A couple months ago, I watched the One LSB Hymn a Week video for "Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates" (LSB #341):


It occurred to me that there's an ascending interval at the beginning of the first phrase, the melody to which "Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates" is sung:


The title of this tune is "Milwaukee," but in The Lutheran Service Book, "Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates" is also paired with the tune "Macht hoch die Tür" (LSB #340).  The first phrase of that tune also begins with an ascending interval:


It's a smaller interval than that in "Milwaukee" (a minor third compared to a sixth), but it still provides the idea of the "lift[ing] up" in the hymn's text.