Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 2, 2018
Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin (With peace and joy I depart), BWV 125, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, composed in Leipzig in 1725 for the Candlemas feast on 2 February. The cantata is based on Martin Luther's 1524 hymn of the same name. The gospel for the feast day, the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, includes Simeon's canticle (painting pictured), which Luther paraphrased in his hymn. For Bach's chorale cantata cycle, an unknown librettist retained the first and the last of Luther's four stanzas, paraphrasing the second stanza for an aria, and including its original text line by line in a recitative. Bach framed four solo movements with choral music, a chorale fantasia and a closing chorale. He scored the work for three vocal soloists, a four-part choir, horn, flauto traverso, oboes, strings and basso continuo. In the third movement, Bach uses recitative for the librettist's text, and arioso for the interspersed hymn quotations, accompanying both with a joyful motif. The opening chorus has been compared to the opening movement of Bach's later St Matthew Passion. (Full article...)