Dec 25, 2014
Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191
Gloria in excelsis Deo. Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will.
Bach composed the Christmas cantata in Leipzig, probably in 1745 to celebrate the end of the Second Silesian War on Christmas Day. The composition's three movements all derive from the Gloria of an earlier Missa (Kyrie and Gloria in B minor) written by Bach in 1733, which he would use later as the 'Gloria' of his Mass in B minor. (BWV 232).
