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Beginning of the solo violin part

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...)

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Did you know ...

Rose Delaunay

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... that Gérard de Nerval's poem "Delphica" promises that the gods of classical mythology will eventually return?
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In the news

Dennis Sullivan

Mathematician Dennis Sullivan (pictured) is awarded the Abel Prize for his work in topology.
China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 crashes in Guangxi, China, killing all 132 people on board.
The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge, the first bridge over the Dardanelles and the world's longest suspension bridge, opens in Turkey.
Serdar Berdimuhamedow succeeds his father Gurbanguly and takes office as president of Turkmenistan.

On this day

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire

March 25: Bengali Genocide Remembrance Day

1410 – The Yongle Emperor of Ming China launched the first of his military campaigns against the Mongols, resulting in the fall of the Mongol khan Bunyashiri.
1655 – Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovered Titan, the largest natural satellite of Saturn.
1911 – The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (pictured) in New York City killed 146 sweatshop workers, many of whom could not escape because the doors to the stairwells and exits had been locked.
1934 – Enrico Fermi published his discovery of neutron-induced radioactivity, for which he was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938.
1975 – King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot and killed by his nephew Faisal bin Musaid.

Novalis (d. 1801)
Harriet Backer (d. 1932)
Elton John (b. 1947)

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Geoff Thomas

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award is an award given annually as part of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremony each December. The award is given "for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity", and the winner is selected by BBC Sport. The award is named after the BBC sports presenter Helen Rollason, who died in August 1999 at the age of 43 after suffering from cancer. After her diagnosis, she helped raise more than £5 million to set up a cancer wing at the North Middlesex Hospital, where she received most of her treatment. The inaugural recipient of the award was horse trainer Jenny Pitman, in 1999. Several recipients have not played a sport professionally. Michael Watson, who won the award in 2003, had a career in boxing but was paralysed and almost killed in a title bout with Chris Eubank. He won the award for completing the London Marathon, an accomplishment that took him six days. Former footballer Geoff Thomas (pictured) won the award in 2005; he raised money by cycling the 2,200 miles (3,500 km) of the 2005 Tour de France course in the same number of days as the professionals completed it. (This list is part of a featured topic: BBC Sports Personality of the Year.)

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Today's featured picture

Porters Pass is a mountain pass in the region of Canterbury on the South Island of New Zealand. At an elevation of 939 metres (3,081 feet) and traversed by State Highway 73, it is the third-highest point on the South Island's state-highway network. The pass was named in 1858 after the Porter brothers, who were farming in the area. A scenic lookout is visible off the highway in the centre of this panoramic photograph, with the Big Ben Range, part of the Korowai / Torlesse Tussocklands Park, in the background.

Photograph credit: Michal Klajban

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