The Great God Pan
The Great God Pan is a horror and fantasy novella by Welsh writer Arthur Machen. Machen was inspired to write "The Great God Pan" by his experiences at the ruins of a pagan temple in Wales. What would become the first chapter of the novella was published in the magazine "The Whirlwind" in 1890. Machen later extended "The Great God Pan" and it was published as a book alongside another story, "The Inmost Light", in 1894. The novella begins with an experiment to allow a woman named Mary to see the supernatural world. This is followed by an account of a series of mysterious happenings and deaths over many years surrounding a woman named Helen Vaughan. At the end, the heroes confront Helen and force her to kill herself. She undergoes a series of supernatural transformations before dying and she is revealed to be the child of Mary and the god Pan.
Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a
Bach probably first performed the Magnificat on the feast day, 2 July. Until 2003, most musicologists believed that Bach wrote the Magnificat for his first Christmas in Leipzig. Then Andreas Glöckner published "Bachs Es-Dur-Magnificat BWV 243a – eine genuine Weihnachtsmusik?" (Bach's Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a – a genuine Christmas music?) in the "Bach-Jahrbuch" (Bach yearbook) 89, questioning the Christmas date in favour of Visitation the same year. Older sources naturally still have Christmas as the first performance, for example Neil Jenkins, the editor of an edition for Novello in 2000. He writes that the "new Thomaskantor was obviously intending to impress his new employer and the congregation", which makes even more sense at the beginning of Bach's tenure. Not all scholars follow Glöckner's arguments, but Jones agrees with Glöckner: "... may well have received its first performance at the Feast of the Visitation on 2 July 1723, only five weeks after he took up his Leipzig post."