The Easter Oratorio , BWV 249, is one of three oratorios composed by Johann Sebastian Bach for high holiday services of the Lutheran church in Leipzig. He wrote an autograph score (page pictured) in 1738, but had already composed the music in 1725 for two works: the congratulatory Shepherd Cantata and a church cantata for Easter. The text of the Shepherd Cantata was written by Picander, in his first documented collaboration with Bach. Picander may also have adapted the text for the Easter work, using unusually neither Biblical text nor chorales. Both works are musical dramas involving male and female characters, which, in the cantata, are from the Biblical Easter narratives. The music is structured in eleven movements, and scored for a festive Baroque instrumental ensemble of three trumpets, timpani, a variety of wind instruments, strings and continuo. Bach performed the Easter Oratorio in 1749, the year before his death. ( Full article... )
April 5 : Easter in Western Christianity (2026); Qingming Festival in Greater China (2026); Feast day of Saint Vincent Ferrer (Catholicism)
| | Nadar (born Gaspard-Félix Tournachon; 5 April 1820 – 20 March 1910) was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, balloonist, and proponent of heavier-than-air flight. In 1858, he became the first person to take aerial photographs, and during the Siege of Paris in 1870–71, he established the first airmail service. In 1863, Nadar commissioned the prominent balloonist Eugène Godard to construct an enormous balloon, 60 metres (196 ft) high and with a capacity of 6,000 m3 (210,000 ft3), named Le Géant (The Giant). For publicity, he recreated balloon flights in his studio with his wife, Ernestine, using a rigged-up balloon gondola. This 1862 illustration by Honoré Daumier is titled Nadar élevant la Photographie à la hauteur de l'Art and shows Nadar taking photographs from a balloon basket. Photograph credit: Honoré Daumier; restored by Adam Cuerden Recently featured: |