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Beginning of the first movement

Jesu, meine Freude (Jesus, my joy), BWV 227, is a motet by J. S. Bach. In eleven movements for up to five voices, it is his longest and most musically complex motet. It is named after the 1653 Lutheran hymn "Jesu, meine Freude" by Johann Franck; the hymn's six stanzas form the motet's odd-numbered movements. Bach used the hymn tune by Johann Crüger in five different chorale settings (example pictured). The hymn's text focuses on an emotional bond to Jesus, complementing the doctrinal text from the Epistle to the Romans used for the even-numbered movements. Jesu, meine Freude is one of the few works by Bach for five vocal parts, in a structure of symmetries on different layers. It is unclear when the motet was written. Bach scholar Christoph Wolff believed that Bach may have compiled it to educate his choir in composition techniques and theology; an earlier theory that it was written for a 1723 funeral in Leipzig is now discredited. In 1927, it became the first Bach motet to be recorded. (Full article...)

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Isabel Leighton

... that Isabel Leighton (pictured), an actress and writer, created a chair in hematology at Yale University in honor of her husband?
... that the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia is the only contemporary art museum in the country with a permanent collection?
... that the Windows 95 game Banzai Bug, in which a player controls a bug that must escape from an exterminator's house and is told as a war story, was created as "The Flight-Sim with an Attitude"?
... that Jérôme Chappellaz wants to collect ice cores from Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro to be preserved in Antarctica?
... that the New Zealand stonefly Stenoperla prasina was the five millionth specimen digitised by the Natural History Museum in London?
... that shortly after getting married in 1875, Robert A. Emmitt crossed the Cascade Mountains driving a cattle herd while his wife led a pack horse that carried their possessions?
... that the Zigzag House was designed for two people who supported the circus arts?
... that Mark Birley described the interior decor of his Bath & Racquets Club as the "post-Mussolini epic style"?

In the news

Cyclone Batsirai

Cyclone Batsirai (satellite image shown) makes landfall in Madagascar, displacing at least 45,000 people and leaving at least 10 others dead.
Indian playback singer and composer Lata Mangeshkar dies at the age of 92.
The Winter Olympics open in Beijing, China.
Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi dies in a US military raid in Atme, Syria.
The Socialist Party, led by António Costa, wins a majority of seats in the Portuguese legislative election.

On this day

February 7: Constitution Day in Mexico (2022)

Bust of Leo I

457 – Leo I (pictured), who ruled for nearly 20 years, was crowned Byzantine emperor.
1813 – Napoleonic Wars: Two evenly matched French and British frigates fought for four hours at the Îles de Los off the Guinean coast, resulting in a stalemate.
1900 – A Chinese immigrant in San Francisco fell ill with the bubonic plague in the first epidemic of the disease in the continental United States.
1992 – The Maastricht Treaty, which led to the formation of the European Union, was signed by the member states of the European Communities.
1997 – Steve Jobs returned to Apple Inc. as a consultant after the company's acquisition of his technology startup NeXT.

Azar Bigdeli (b. 1722)
Louisa Jane Hall (b. 1802)
Eddie Izzard (b. 1962)

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Fran Wilde

The Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction is an annual award presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) to the author of the best young adult or middle grade science fiction or fantasy book published in the United States in the preceding year. It is named to honor prolific science-fiction and fantasy author Andre Norton (1912–2005), and it was established by then SFWA president Catherine Asaro and the SFWA Young Adult Fiction committee and announced on February 20, 2005. Andre Norton Award nominees and winners are chosen by members of SFWA, though the authors of the nominees do not need to be members. Works are nominated each year by members in a period around December 15 through January 31, and the six works that receive the most nominations then form the final ballot, with additional nominees possible in the case of ties. During the 16 nomination years, 85 authors have had works nominated, of whom 15 have won. Fran Wilde (pictured) is the only author to have won twice, out of two nominations. Holly Black and Scott Westerfeld have had the most nominations at four—with Black winning once and Westerfeld yet to win—followed by Sarah Beth Durst with three nominations without winning. (Full list...)

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Trosia nigropunctigera, the rosy ermine moth, is a lepidopteran in the family Megalopygidae native to the Neotropics. The species is distributed across Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Ecuador and Peru. This adult T. nigropunctigera moth was photographed in the Mount Totumas cloud forest in Panama.

Photograph credit: Charles James Sharp

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