Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern

The manuscripts of Johann Gottfried Walther are a valuable source for compositions of his contemporaries. His transcriptions are very precise and on the whole he meticulously writes down the composer of the pieces. But not always. A few of them have no named composer, and that leaves us to speculate on who might have been the composer. This chorale prelude to “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern” is one of those anonymous pieces. The quality of the composition is without question. The sparkling of the morning star and the festive occasion of the born of Christ is adequately depicted in a transparent and light texture full of rapid passages. Perhaps the composer was Walther himself. We’ll probably never know for sure.
(source: Partitura Organum)