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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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Lichfield Cathedral, in Lichfield, Staffordshire, is the only medieval English cathedral with three spires. The cathedral suffered severe damage during the English Civil War in which all of the stained glass was destroyed. In spite of this, the windows of the Lady Chapel contain some of the finest medieval Flemish painted glass in existence. Dating from the 1530s, it came from Herkenrode Abbey in Belgium, in 1801, having been purchased by Sir Brooke Boothby when that abbey was dissolved during the Napoleonic Wars. It was sold on to the cathedral for the same price. There are also some fine windows by Betton and Evans (1819), and many fine late-19th-century windows, particularly those by Charles Eamer Kempe. This photograph depicts part of cathedral's nave, depicting the column structure on the wall.

Photograph credit: David Iliff

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