Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/October 23, 2022

First page of the autograph score

Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen (lit. 'I will gladly carry the cross-staff'), BWV 56, is a solo cantata for a bass singer by Johann Sebastian Bach. First performed in Leipzig on 27 October 1726, the 19th Sunday after Trinity, it was scored for woodwinds, strings and continuo, and features an obbligato oboe. The autograph score (pictured) is one of a few cases where Bach described one of his compositions as a cantata. In 2015 it was discovered that Bach collaborated with mathematics and theology student Christoph Birkmann, who wrote the text about a Christian willing to "carry the cross" as a follower of Jesus, in a life compared to a voyage towards a harbour. The work's five movements include arias, recitatives and the chorale "Komm, o Tod, du Schlafes Bruder" ('Come, o death, you brother of sleep'). In his Bach biography, Albert Schweitzer said it placed "unparalleled demands on the dramatic imagination of the singer". It has been recorded more than 100 times since a 1939 live broadcast. (Full article...)

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Gerda, it was admittedly rather difficult for me to get this blurb down to the character limit, so i took some liberties with my rewording that i normally wouldn't have. hopefully, i was successful with keeping all of the details that you wanted, though i apologize if i made anything worse. please feel free to revert anything you disagree with. dying (talk) 00:07, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry for having caused you difficulties. Just waking up, I'll not go into details, or make changes, just simply food for thought. This is a highly unusual cantata so we should focus on the unusual items, and less on the usual ones:

I think it's commonly known (and if not can be read in the article) that these are church cantatas, so we might write "solo cantata for bass" right at the beginning, piped to church cantata.
I think it's commonly known that these cantatas were first performed on the Sunday they were written for, so we might just say "which fell on 27 October that year". "Premiered" is rather a word for opera, not routine church music - which this was, at least for Bach, doing his job week for week.
I think it's commonly known that these cantatas alternate arias and recitatives, closing with a chorale, so that might be shortened, also Baroque ensemble (what else?).
We might drop the second "Leipzig", and say Birkmann, a student of math and phil who collaborated with Bach, - or find some other way to stress that they made this work together, and the composer accepted the work of a young man.
Unusual: the role of the solo oboe as an obbligato instrument, - we may want to find room for that, perhaps where we mention "for a bass voice". The related table of recordings lists the names of the oboist as a soloist for a reason.
Unusual: that we didn't know the librettist until 2015, but probably no room for that. Or is it?
Unusual: recorded more than 100 times, sometimes three times by the same singer, showing how they were fascinated and tried again and again. But same.

I'll be back, but you could play with it already. Thanks for having left all most special features: "cantata" - translation of chorale - librettist - Schweitzer evaluation. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:25, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh, no worries about causing me any difficulties; i only mentioned it to explain why i took those liberties. i'm not sure if i'm correctly interpreting your comments about what can be removed, but hopefully the following is a step in the right direction.

Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen (lit. 'I will gladly carry the cross-staff'), BWV 56, is a solo cantata for a bass singer by Johann Sebastian Bach. First performed in Leipzig on 27 October 1726, the 19th Sunday after Trinity, it was scored for woodwinds, strings and continuo, and features an obbligato oboe. The autograph score (pictured) is one of a few cases where Bach described one of his compositions as a cantata. In 2015 it was discovered that Bach collaborated with mathematics and theology student Christoph Birkmann, who wrote the text about a Christian willing to "carry the cross" as a follower of Jesus, in a life compared to a voyage towards a harbour. The work's five movements include arias, recitatives and the chorale "Komm, o Tod, du Schlafes Bruder" ('Come, o death, you brother of sleep'). In his Bach biography, Albert Schweitzer said it placed "unparalleled demands on the dramatic imagination of the singer". It has been recorded more than 100 times since a 1939 live broadcast. (Full article...)

also, sorry about using "Premiered". i had a feeling that there may have been a usage issue, but was starting to get desperate for characters to remove, so i did a little research and thought it was okay. apparently, i was wrong. thanks for letting me know. dying (talk) 12:53, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda, i have copied the proposed rewrite over to the blurb page as it is about to be protected, but please feel free to raise any additional points if there are any. thanks! dying (talk) 23:27, 21 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]