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Soprano part in Bach's hand

Christ lag in Todes Banden (Christ lay in death's bonds), BWV 4, is a chorale cantata for Easter by Johann Sebastian Bach, one of his earliest church cantatas. It is agreed to be an early work, partly for stylistic reasons and partly because there is evidence that it was probably written for a performance in 1707. Text and music are based on Luther's hymn of the same name, derived from medieval models. In each of seven vocal movements, Bach used the unchanged words of a stanza of the chorale and its tune as a cantus firmus. Although all movements are in E minor, Bach intensified the meaning of the text through a variety of musical forms and techniques. He performed the cantata again as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, beginning in 1724 for his first Easter there. Only this second version survived, scored for four vocal parts (soprano part pictured) and a Baroque instrumental ensemble with strings and a choir of cornetto and three trombones. John Eliot Gardiner described the cantata as Bach's "first-known attempt at painting narrative in music" and "a bold, innovative piece of musical drama". (Full article...)

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On this day

April 4

William Henry Harrison

1268 – The Byzantine Empire and the Republic of Venice signed a treaty that brought seven years of hostilities to a temporary end.
1841 – William Henry Harrison (pictured) became the first U.S. president to die in office, sparking a brief constitutional crisis regarding questions of presidential succession that were left unanswered by the U.S. Constitution.
1859 – Bryant's Minstrels premiered the minstrel song "Dixie" in New York City as part of their blackface show.
1975 – Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800.
2013 – A building collapsed on tribal land in Mumbra, a suburb of Thane in Maharashtra, India, causing 74 deaths.

Robert III of Scotland (d. 1406)
Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours (b. 1752)
Karen Spärck Jones (d. 2007)

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Today's featured picture

Étienne Maurice Gérard (4 April 1773 – 17 April 1852) was a French general, statesman and marshal of France. He served under a succession of French governments, including the monarchy of the Ancien Régime, the First Republic, the First Empire, the Bourbon Restoration, the July Monarchy, the Second Republic, and arguably the Second Empire, becoming prime minister briefly in 1834. This 1816 portrait of Gérard by Jacques-Louis David is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Painting credit: Jacques-Louis David

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