Advent and Christmas (35): "Macht hoch die Tür"

Carl Piutti (1846-1902), teacher of organ and music theory at the Leipzig Conservatory, became organist of the famous Thomaskirche in 1880.

In his choral prelude of this German Advent tune, which is out of a collection of 200 chorale preludes (op. 34), the melody line changes between soprano and bass, integrated into a sonorous pastoral-hymnic phrase, which emancipated in the second half from the choral tune. The melody is from 1704, while the lyrics are older and were written most likely in the context of the Thirty Years' War: 'All our misery leads to the end'.