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.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mit_Fried_und_Freud_ich_fahr_dahin

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1438:

Nine leaders of the Transylvanian peasant revolt were executed at Torda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvanian_peasant_revolt

1709:

Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk (commemorative statue pictured) was rescued by English captain Woodes Rogers and the crew of the Duke after spending four years as a castaway on an uninhabited island in the Juan Fernández archipelago, providing the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodes_Rogers

1913:

New York City's Grand Central Terminal, the world's largest train station in number of platforms, opened at midnight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Terminal

1942:

The Osvald Group committed the first active event of the Norwegian resistance movement by blowing up Oslo East Station to protest the inauguration of Vidkun Quisling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osvald_Group

2012:

The passenger ferry MV Rabaul Queen capsized and sank in rough conditions in the Solomon Sea, resulting in at least 88 deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Rabaul_Queen

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

coo: 1. (transitive, intransitive) To make a soft murmuring sound, as a pigeon. 2. (intransitive) To speak in an admiring fashion, to be enthusiastic about. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coo

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

All things are inconstant except the faith in the soul, which changes all things and fills their inconstancy with light, but though I seem to be driven out of my country as a misbeliever I have found no man yet with a faith like mine.   --James Joyce https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Joyce