Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 25, 2022
Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern ('How beautifully the morning star shines'), BWV 1, is a church cantata for the Annunciation by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed his chorale cantata in 1725, based on Philipp Nicolai's 1599 hymn, for the 25 March feast which coincided with Palm Sunday that year. The theme of the hymn suits both occasions, in a spirit of longing expectation of an arrival. The hymn was paraphrased by a contemporary poet who retained its first and last stanzas unchanged, set as a chorale fantasia and the closing chorale, but transformed the inner stanzas into a sequence of alternating recitatives and arias. Bach scored the work for three vocal soloists, a four-part choir and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two horns, two oboes da caccia, two solo violins (part pictured), strings and continuo. It is the last chorale cantata of his second cantata cycle, begins the Bach-Gesellschaft's 1851 complete edition of his works and is listed as No. 1 in the 1950 Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis. (Full article...)