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First page of the autograph score

Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild ('God the Lord is sun and shield'), is a church cantata for Reformation Day by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in 1725 while Thomaskantor in Leipzig, and led the first performance on 31 October that year. It is possibly his first cantata for the occasion; the text was written by an unknown poet. Bach structured the work in six movements, with an aria following the opening chorus, and a recitative and duet following the first chorale. He scored the work for three vocal soloists, a four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble. He achieved a unity within the structure by using two horns not only in the opening but also as obbligato instruments in the two chorales, the first time even playing the same motifs. He performed the cantata again, probably in 1730. He later reworked the music of the opening chorus and a duet again for his Missa in G major and the music of an alto aria for his Missa in A major. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Portrait of Gregor Baci

... that a Hungarian nobleman (pictured) survived with a spear in his head?
... that Friday the 13th has been credited for popularizing the trope of teenage characters suffering violent murders after having premarital sex?
... that Tish Weinstock got married over the Halloween weekend in 2022 at a castle wearing a wedding dress made from antique lace styled after Morticia Addams?
... that Ingersoll's Ordinary was used as a prison during the Salem witch trials?
... that the art of Villains Are Destined to Die was said to be "almost in-between the Disney happy-ending fairy tales and the original Grimm's stories"?
... that police forced Eva Coo and her accomplice to reenact a killing at the crime scene using the victim's exhumed body?
... that one of the bosses of the video game CarnEvil can be replaced with a giant teddy bear?
... that the flatworm Freddius is named after Freddy Krueger's razor gloves?

In the news

Hurricane Melissa

Hurricane Melissa (satellite image shown) leaves more than 40 people dead across the Caribbean.
More than 130 people are killed in a police operation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In the Sudanese civil war, at least 2,500 people are killed in massacres after Al-Fashir is captured by the Rapid Support Forces.
Timor-Leste joins ASEAN as its 11th member.
Catherine Connolly is elected President of Ireland.

On this day

October 31: Halloween

Martin Luther

475 – Romulus Augustulus took the throne as the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
1517 – Martin Luther (pictured) posted his Ninety-five Theses onto the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
1999 – Australian sailor Jesse Martin arrived in Melbourne, becoming the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo, non-stop, and unassisted.
2000 – Singapore Airlines Flight 006 collided with construction equipment while attempting to take off from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taiwan during heavy rain, killing 83 people aboard.
2017 – An Uzbek immigrant drove a rented truck into cyclists and runners in Lower Manhattan, New York City, killing eight people.

John Keats (b. 1795)
Juliette Gordon Low (b. 1860)
Bill Kibby (d. 1942)
Chris Chase (d. 2013)

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Joe Page

The Babe Ruth Award is given annually to the Major League Baseball (MLB) player with the best performance in the postseason. The award, created in honor of Babe Ruth by the New York City chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA), was first presented in 1949. It continued to be awarded exclusively for performances in the World Series until 2007, when the New York chapter of the BBWAA changed the award to cover the entire postseason. Though it is older than the World Series Most Valuable Player Award, which was not created until 1955, the Babe Ruth Award is considered less prestigious, because it is not sanctioned by MLB and is awarded several weeks after the World Series. Joe Page (pictured) of the New York Yankees was the first winner of the Babe Ruth Award, and Jonathan Papelbon of the Boston Red Sox was the first winner since the award criteria changed to cover the entire postseason. In all, members of the Yankees have won the award sixteen times. Two players, Sandy Koufax and Jack Morris, have won the award twice. (Full list...)

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Nosferatu is a 1922 silent German expressionist horror vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau from a screenplay by Henrik Galeen. It stars Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife (Greta Schröder) of his estate agent (Gustav von Wangenheim) and brings the plague to their town. Nosferatu was produced by Prana Film and is an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. Various names and other details were changed from the novel, including Count Dracula being renamed Orlok. Although those changes are often represented as a defense against accusations of copyright infringement, the original German intertitles acknowledged Dracula as the source. Even with several details altered, Stoker's widow Florence sued over the adaptation's copyright violation, and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, several prints of Nosferatu survived, and the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre.

Film credit: F. W. Murnau

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