Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad, BWV 165

O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad, BWV 165

 * This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page. 

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/May 31, 2015 by Brianboulton (talk) 21:57, 13 May 2015 (UTC)



O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad (O holy bath of Spirit and water), BWV 165, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Weimar for Trinity Sunday and led the first performance on 16 June 1715. Bach had taken up regular cantata composition a year before when he was promoted to concertmaster at the Weimar court, writing one cantata per month for the chapel in the ducal Schloss''. The libretto by the court poet Salomo Franck is based on the day's prescribed gospel reading about the meeting of Jesus and Nicodemus (pictured in a comtemporary painting). Close in content to the gospel, the text connects the concept of the Trinity to baptism. The music is structured in six movements, alternating arias and recitatives, and scored for a small ensemble of four vocal parts, strings and continuo. The closing chorale is the fifth stanza of a hymn by Ludwig Helmbold which mentions scripture, baptism and the Eucharist. Bach set the text full of Baroque imagery as a sermon in music, especially in the two recitatives for the bass voice, and achieved contrasts in expression. He probably led a second performance on the Trinity Sunday concluding his first year as Thomaskantor in Leipzig on 4 June 1724.
 * Most recent similar article(s): latest classical music composition 7 Feb, requested opera 28 May, but completely different topic, both anniversaries
 * Main editors: Gerda Arendt
 * Promoted: today
 * Reasons for nomination: Bach composed the piece for Trinity Sunday 300 years ago. I suggest to have it on Trinity Sunday this year. The idea occurred to me a little late, and I thank all who helped!
 * Support as nominator. Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:24, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: I don't think it would be appropriate to schedule two classical music articles, however different in genre, within four days. For one thing, we ought to nurture the meagre stock of classical FAs that we have, keeping them if possible for significant dates. In this case, I think the 300th anniversary of the Bach piece is much more significant than the 407th anniversary of Monteverdi's opera, and unless there is strong opposition from editors I propose to withdraw Arianna with a view to representing it next year. Brianboulton (talk) 10:27, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * This is very generous, and you will be the one to decide, but firstly I think the two topics are different enough, secondly more FAs on classical compositions are planned, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:30, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Support. Karanacs (talk) 17:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)