This song is easily one of the most serene and beautiful pieces ever composed.
Written for a string ensemble, it starts with slow melody augmented by some plucking.
The thing which really makes the song so great is the way it builds in complexity, and emotional intensity.
By the climax, the song is a rousing and thoughtful exhortation to feel good and relax.
The origins of the song are in some ways lost to the mists of time, largely because it’s so old. So old in fact, that it was probably written in the late 1600s!
It is truly music of another era, but it will be just as great in another 400 years, I have no doubt of that.
It was relatively obscure, but was re-discovered in 1919 by Gustav Beckmann, and in 1968, Jean-Francois Paillard re-interpreted the piece by making it slower (among other things). This helped to cement the piece’s popularity in the modern era.