"Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates" (LSB #340)

Many years ago, I wrote about a small feature in "Lift up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates."  A few years ago, I found many more things to note.  The text is paired with two different tunes, but this post is about "Macht hoch die Tür" (#340 in The Lutheran Service Book).

Here's the first musical phrase:

As I noted before, in the first line of the hymn, the phrase "lift up" is sung to an ascending interval (albeit only a minor third:  G to Bb), giving a sense of its meaning.

In the second verse, the text here is "A righteous Helper comes to thee."  "Comes" is sung with a melisma (Eb F), giving something of a sense of movement.

The third musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "The King of kings is drawing near."  Similar to the above, since "drawing" is sung with a melisma (Bb C A), there's a sense of movement.

The fifth musical phrase:

In the first verse, the text here is "Life and salvation He doth bring."  The words "Life and salvation" are sung to two overlapping cross inscriptions, illustrating that it's through His crucifixion and resurrection that Jesus brings us "life and salvation."

In the third verse, the text is "The cloudless sun of joy is He," and "joy" is sung with a melisma (C Bb), giving a sense of ebullience.  In the fourth verse, the text is "So shall your Sov'reign enter in."  Like "comes" and "drawing" above, since "enter" is sung with a melisma (C Bb Ab), there's a sense of movement.

The same musical phrase is repeated as the sixth phrase, and in the first verse, the text here is "Therefore rejoice and gladly sing," and in the second, the text is "Therefore the earth is glad and sings."  "Gladly" and "glad" are both sung with melismas (C Bb Ab and C Bb, respectively), giving a sense of ebullience.

"Macht hoch die Tür" (TLH #73c)

"Macht hoch die Tür" (TLH #73a)

This is the first of three tunes for TLH #73 (confusingly, all are titled "Macht hoch die Tür").  I'd skipt this originally because I didn't know how to accommodate the time signature (part of it is in 4/4, and part of it is in 3/4), but it actually wasn't too difficult.

"Macht hoch die Tür" (TLH #73b)

There are three tunes for "Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates" in The Lutheran Hymnal.  This is the second.  I skipt the first because part of it is in 4/4 and part of it is in 3/4 and I don't know how to set my click track to accommodate that, and I'll probably skip the third because it's in Ab major and I'm disinclined to transpose it.  Confusingly, all three tunes are titled "Macht hoch die Tür."

"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.