"From All That Dwell Below the Skies"

Months ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 21 November.  The processional hymn was "From All That Dwell Below the Skies," and I noticed two small features in it.

The hymn is sung to the tune "Lasst uns erfreuen."  Here's the second musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "Let the Creator's praise arise," and the ascending melody portrays this "aris[ing]," albeit a bit more literally.

Here's the fifth musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "Through ev'ry land by ev'ry tongue" (it continues the sense from the previous line:  "Let the Redeemer's name be sung").  The phrase "ev'ry tongue" is sung to notes of all different pitches (F# G A), giving a sense of breadth or entirety.

"Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds"

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 28 April, in which the hymn was "Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds."  I noticed a small feature in the line "All the glory, never ending!" near the end of the fourth verse, sung to this musical phrase from the tune "Lasst uns erfreuen":

The phrase "All the glory" is sung to notes of all different pitches (Ab G F Eb), providing a sense of this entirety.

"Lasst uns erfreuen" (TLH #212)

I transposed this from Eb major to D major.  It's in 3/2 in the hymnal, but I set my click track to 6/4.  I thought that would make it easier for me, but I must have gotten a bit confused at the end because the Amen cadence is only half the length it should be.

"Lasst uns erfreuen" (TLH #15)

When I lookt at this tune last week, I mis-read the key and thought it was in Ab major.  That's more flats than I'm comfortable with, so I transposed it down a half-step, thinking I was putting it into G major.  Within a few measures, I realized that it's actually in Eb major, and I was transposing it to D major.  Had I read the key correctly, maybe I wouldn't have transposed it, but I like the sharp keys better than the flat keys anyway.

I've been recording the bass parts lately just because I think that having them makes the tunes more interesting, but for this one, I recorded just one of the bass parts (the lower of the two).  I felt that a second one would obscure this one, which I really like.  Besides, the higher bass part is usually the more difficult of the two (in my experience), and I didn't feel like bothering with it.

"A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing"

Ascension Day was a few months ago, and one of the hymns in the service was "A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing."  About a week after that, I transcribed the LSB and LW versions.  Between singing it and transcribing it, I found a few musical/textual connections.

The tune to which the hymn is sung is "Lasst uns erfreuen," and the first two phrases (which are the same) ascend:

Appropriately, some of the text sung to these ascending phrases mentions Christ's Ascension.  The first two lines of the third verse are "To them the shining angels cry, / 'Why stand and gaze upon the sky?'" and the first two lines of the fourth verse are "'You see Him now, ascending high / Up to the portals of the sky.'"  To some degree, this applies to the first line of the sixth verse too:  "O risen Christ, ascended Lord."

The LW version has a verse that the LSB version doesn't, and its first two lines also mention an ascent:  "O Lord, our homeward pathway bend / That our unwearied hearts ascend."

"Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds"

A couple months ago, I transcribed "Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds," and while doing so I found some connections between the text and "Lasst uns erfreuen," the tune to which the hymn is sung.

The second phrase of "Lasst uns erfreuen" ascends:

In verse one, the line there is "In praise of love that still abounds," and in verse three "Set heart and will on things above."  In the first verse, the ascent in the melody represents the "abound[ing]" of love, and in the third verse, it points upward to the "things above."