Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Komm, du süße Todesstunde, BWV 161

Komm, du süße Todesstunde, BWV 161

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The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 19, 2016 by  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:42, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Komm, du süße Todesstunde (Come, o sweet hour of death), BWV 161, is a church cantata composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in Weimar for the 16th Sunday after Trinity, and probably first performed on 27 September 1716. The text was provided by the court poet Salomon Franck. He based it on the prescribed gospel reading about the young man from Nain and reflected on longing for death, seen as a transition to a life united with Jesus. The cantata in six movements opens with alternating arias and recitatives, leading to a chorus and a concluding chorale, a stanza of the hymn "Herzlich tut mich verlangen" by Christoph Knoll. The chorale tune appears in the first movement, played by the organ, providing an overall formal unity to the composition. Bach scored the work for alto and tenor soloists, a four-part choir, and a Baroque chamber ensemble of recorders, strings and continuo. In a recitative, he creates the images of sleep, of waking up, and of funeral bells. While the libretto was published in a collection in 1715, Bach probably did not perform it until 27 September 1716, due to a long period of public mourning in the Duchy from August 1715. (Full article...)