The 1984 reading coincided neatly with the conclusion of his complete cantata series. Werner Güra warms into the role of Evangelist but it is the poetic ambition of Christine Schäfer (‘Flösst, mein heiland’ magically projects the unpredictability of the outdoors) and her co-soloists that reinforces the inspiration which breezes over this penetrating and original encounter with the Oratorio. Even so, Schreier’s Bach comes from within (and this is where he is more a Richter than a Rilling) and his understanding regularly makes disarming sense of the music. The soloists are all outstanding, thoughtful and often radiant. Two days earlier, the congregation in Leipzig had listened to the St John Passion, just as in 1724. One such example is the great cradle aria, ‘Schlafe, mein Liebster’, where composer and librettist (probably Bach’s prime collaborator, Picander) produce an affectionate and telling makeover sourced from an older secular cantata (BWV213) – the tempting wiles of the allegorical ‘Pleasure’ luring Hercules towards a rather different concept of sleep, here becoming a vision of haloed slumber fit for the kingly child. Howard Crook is a cultivated Evangelist but neither he nor the excellent Michael Chance and Peter Kooij can find that incremental sense of jubilation which the finest readings offer; the recording also lacks the precision of the finest choirs. Sinfonia 2 (11). Ten years on, Richter is the ultimate purposeful and charismatic director with his seasoned Munich forces and stunning soloists: Gundula Janowitz, Christa Ludwig and Fritz Wunderlich (who had given us a hint of his delectable Evangelist in Parts 1‑3 for August Langenbeck). Welcome Letter Bach Interactions Cantatas Christmas Oratorio. For the second day of Christmas 26:18 3. Gramophone is brought to you by Mark Allen Group Bernarda Fink has her head buried in her copy but the Evangelist, Christoph Genz, sings without any music and tells the story without flinching. Bach - Christmas Oratorio. The chorales squeeze the last pips and the adagissimo in the Part 2 Sinfonia says too much about the artist and not enough about Bach. Any survey of Bach’s major choral works is likely to be punctuated by at least three recordings under Helmuth Rilling. Rilling increasingly took a pragmatic view towards traditional practice, paying only ‘lip service’ to period performance, which resulted in pangs of conscience with respect to tempi, ornament, balance and articulation. (T) Evangelist And there were shepherds in that very region in the field nearby their sheepfolds, who kept their watch by night over their flocks. Bach - Easter Oratorio: Kommt, eilet und laufet ... - YouTube A year later Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden, with the Tolzer Knabenchor and Collegium Aureum, embarked on a recording which, with significantly more wrinkles than Harnoncourt’s, bursts forth with spirited expectation as the Nativity is vigorously explored. His ‘Ich will nur’ in Part 4 is exceptional. The series features three renowned cantatas, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131, and Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61, followed by all six parts of Bach’s beloved Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248. For the 3rd day of Christmas 58:24 4. Sunday, December 13th, 2020, 4pm, on the Bach Choir’s YouTube Channel; also to be aired on WFMZ-TV Channel 69 twice during the month of December: at 7pm on Saturday, December 19 and again on Christmas Eve at 10pm. There are three complete DVDs of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. The 1992 Naxos recording under Geza Oberfrank with Hungarian forces is a far livelier affair with responsive soloists in the arias but, sadly, the Evangelist struggles badly in the high register. Despite a few glitches, each cantata represents a clarion of warmth, freedom and optimism, beckoning the listener to experience the work in a single breath. Discrete but deft organ continuo-playing and lovingly crafted chorales – such as ‘Wir singen’ between Parts 2 and 3 – contribute to Koopman’s intensely focused and atmospheric vision across the piece. With John Eliot Gardiner’s uniquely open-shouldered and virtuoso Bach performances, the new ‘period’ generation was transformed in a trice from the mid-1980s. In the second, Peter Dijkstra oversees an organised but jerkily propelled 2010 live performance with the Bavarian Radio Choir and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin in the resonant Herkulessaal in Munich. There are two major commercial accounts of the Oratorio with homegrown Stuttgart forces and two others from Poland and Hungary (which are not under consideration). Robert Tear is not the most idiomatic Bachian, and the addition of an over-characterising Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to an English mix of objectively crisp chamber playing sounds disorientating in this magnificent chapel. The Sinfonia to Part 2 is as touching an evocation of abiding shepherds as you’ll find. The soprano Sibylla Rubens makes an operatic ‘scena’ out of the tempestuous recitative and fervent aria ‘Nur ein Wink’ in Part 6. The orchestral playing is supremely polished, assured and with pinpoint nuancing. Nikolaus Harnoncourt had quickly established his Bach credentials in the first volumes of the complete cantata series, co-directed with Gustav Leonhardt, and in 1972 recorded a performance which, in addition to his usual singers, employed a treble from the Vienna Boys’ Choir to sing all the soprano arias. Some may baulk at the hybrid stylistic world of ‘not-quite-authentic’ (eg modern strings, albeit gut) but there is a gratifying eloquence throughout, enhanced significantly by a fine German alto boy soloist, Andreas Stein, who irradiates ‘Schlafe, mein Liebster’ – the cradling all the more tender for the few years which separate the singer from his own infancy. The chorales are vintage Monteverdi Choir, though the choruses are not as embracing or electric as one feels they could have been. ... Herr, zu dir, BWV 131, and Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61, followed by all six parts of Bach’s beloved Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248. Less atmospheric – but rather more recognisable in terms of increasing technical surety and the aesthetic of objectivity which flavoured ‘early music’ at the cusp of the 1980s – is Hanns-Martin Schneidt’s reading with the Regensburger Domspatzen (whose director for 30 years was Georg Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI’s brother), which espouses safety to such lengths as to render the whole a disappointingly dour essay. Older versions often seem undisciplined and texturally aleatoric by today’s standards. James Taylor is a compelling Evangelist as advocate, commentator and, generally, all-embracing dramatis persona. Harry Christophers and The Sixteen present a more conventional interpretative landscape. Sunday, December 22, 2019 at 4:00 p.m. Johann Sebastian Bach Weihnachts-Oratorium, BWV 248 He applies flair and elegance – leading from the front as Evangelist – but his soloists too often seem trapped in reconciling between old and new vocal styles. If you’re a pushover for elegant packaging, you might as well skip the review and just order this new Christmas Oratorio without delay. ... Herr, zu dir, BWV 131, and Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61, followed by all six parts of Bach’s beloved Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248. The Dresden Kammerchor and vocal soloists fulfil Chailly’s ambition for unremitting leanness and breathtaking mobility, and yet my heart tends to sink under gymnastic survey and über-elegance. The 1984 account of the Oratorio is hardly revelatory but it is a sprightly, texturally bright and tidy reading. Receive a weekly collection of news, features and reviews, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood Thursday, January 7, 2021 at 8 p.m. on Facebook and YouTube Christmas Oratorio Part II. I savoured ‘Frohe Hirten’ as rarely before – the agile tenor Wolfram Lattke is so completely allied with his fluting partner that the shepherds almost take off in exultation. There’s also ample evidence of why Barbara Schlick and Kurt Equiluz are among the most perceptive Bachians of their generation. Only the women soloists fail consistently to reach the level, and the framing choruses of Parts 1 and 6 are technically uneven. No such problems occur for Philip Pickett, who brings a warm and integrated palette to the pastoral chorus elements. Visit our free online treasury for more videos and background material http://allofbach.com/en/. Johann Sebastian Bach Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage, BWV 248/I Carolyn Sampson is irresistible throughout. For many it will satisfy beyond measure. Despite the mollifying quality of Charles Daniels’s deeply satisfying and mature Evangelist, Fasolis takes brilliant expressive risks, if occasionally a touch close to the edge. Jauchzet, frohlocket - YouTube New editorial notes by Bach specialist, Nicholas Anderson, giving context and authoritative detail on the Christmas Oratorio, the career of Fritz Lehmann and this recording project. Münchinger is never less than dependable. Nothing could be further from the case in Ton Koopman’s performance, guided again by Prégardien but now as a far more compelling presence, and ignited by his exceptional Amsterdam colleagues and the especially evocative wind-playing (led by oboist Marcel Ponseele). The "Christmas Oratorio" was written by Bach in 1734, the subject being taken from texts in Luke and Matthew pertaining to the Nativity. Elly Ameling and Helen Watts sing with uniform persuasiveness, though Peter Pears’s clear and urgently declaimed Evangelist is distinctive if tonally restricted. Date / Artists / Record company (review date), 1955 Stuttgart Rad SO / Langenbeck (pts 1-3 only) Profil PH08028, 1958 Leipzig Gewandhaus Orch / Thomas Berlin Classics 0021912BC (12/62R); 0300034BC, 1963 Pforzheim CO / Werner Erato 2564 61403-2 (1/05), 1965 Munich Bach Orch / K Richter Archiv 427 236-2AX3 (3/89); DG 463 701-2AB10, 1966 Stuttgart CO / Münchinger Decca 455 410-2DF2 (12/67R); Newton 8802001, 1972 Concentus Musicus Wien / Harnoncourt WCJ 2564 69854-0 (12/86R), 1973 Bavarian Rad SO / Jochum Philips 416 40-2PB3 (9/73R – nla), 1973 Collegium Aureum / Schmidt-Gaden DHM 88697 57577-2 (4/88R); 88697 58759-2, 1977 Collegium St Emmeram / Schneidt Archiv 477 6282AM3 (10/79R), 1981 Concentus Musicus Wien / Harnoncourt DG 073 4104GH, 1984 Lausanne CO / Corboz Apex 2564 68621-7 (12/84R), 1984 Bach Collegium Stuttgart / Rilling Hänssler Classic CD98 851/3 (2/95); CD98 976, 1987 English Baroque Sols / Gardiner Archiv 423 232-2AH2 (12/87); DG 469 769-2X9, 1987 Staatskapelle Dresden / Schreier Philips 475 9155POR3 (12/87R), 1989 Collegium Vocale, Ghent / Herreweghe Virgin Classics 759530-2 (12/89R), 1991 Conc Cologne / Otto Capriccio 60 025 (4/92), 1992 Failoni CO / Oberfrank Naxos 8 550428/30 (4/93), 1993 Sixteen / Christophers Coro COR16017 (12/93R); COR16072, 1993 Drottningholm Baroque Ens / Ericson Proprius PRCD2012/13, 1995 Virtuosi Saxoniae / Güttler Berlin Classics 0011352BC; 0184192BC, 1996 Amsterdam Baroque Orch / Koopman Erato 0630 14635-2 (3/97), 1997 KlangVerwaltung Orch / Guttenberg Farao B108015, 1997 Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin / Jacobs Harmonia Mundi HMX290 1630/31 (12/97R), 1997 New London Consort / Pickett L’Oiseau-Lyre 458 838-2OH2 (5/00 – nla), 1998 Bach Fest Orch / Funfgeld Dorian DOR93183 (2/00), 1998 Bach Collegium Japan / Suzuki BIS BIS-CD941/2 (2/99), 1999 English Baroque Sols / Gardiner ArtHaus Musik 101 237, 1999 Bach Collegium Stuttgart / Rilling Hänssler Classic CD92 076 (1/01), 2002 Netherlands Bach Society / Veldhoven Channel Classics CCSSA20103 (1/04), 2002/03 Swiss Rad Orch / Fasolis Arts 47714-8, 2006/07 Concentus Musicus Wien / Harnoncourt DHM 88697 11225-2 (12/07), 2009 Kleine Konzert / Max CPO CPO777 459-2, 2010 Leipzig Gewandhaus Orch / Chailly Decca 478 2271DH2, 2010 Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin / Dijkstra BR-Klassik 900502, This article originally appeared in the December 2012 issue of Gramophone. Thirty-plus years on and there’s a relaxed, almost southern-European feel alongside Harnoncourt’s recognition that with ‘powerful mental pictures’ (rather than intense action), the ‘galanterie’ of late Bach is especially fitting for the subject. Bach Christmas Oratorio BWV 248 1. One longs for something altogether less harnessed. The most successful interpreters are those who identify how Bach links each cantata or ‘scene’ through the Evangelist’s quietly influential role: often he is quite directorial – exercising not merely reportage but guiding us personally through the events of Christ’s birth to the Epiphany. His view is principally one of theatrical observation through imaginative calibrations of texture between voices and instruments, of which the poised New London Consort are masters in earlier repertoire. About Mark Allen Group The Christmas Oratorio (German: Weihnachts-Oratorium), BWV 248, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season.It was written for the Christmas season of 1734 and incorporates music from earlier compositions, including three secular cantatas written during 1733 and 1734 and a largely lost church cantata, BWV 248a. Bach: Christmas Oratorio I - 1. ‘Herr, dein Mitleid’, with Lynn Dawson and Klaus Mertens, is played out like a love duet and yet it fits a canvas of sprung vitality which, mostly, renders the rough edges undistracting. The proportion of Oratorio performances on period instruments rose significantly during the 1970s. Like Koopman, Masaaki Suzuki approached the Oratorio within the gargantuan task of committing all the cantatas to disc. An unwieldy Radio Choir skating over detail, in too resonant an acoustic, disqualifies this reading in the same way as that by Enoch zu Guttenberg appears to have been painted by numbers in a story of a thousand mannerisms. And that leaves John Eliot Gardiner and his English Baroque Soloists in the last few days of the 20th century in the Herderkirche in Weimar: an intimate space with gripping ensembles (especially fine instrumental obbligati) and, mostly, excellent solo singing. From the booklet of the Christmas Oratorio CD. The Christmas Oratorio, written for the turn-of-year feast days in 1734/35, was composed during a period in which Bach produced comparatively few new works for his Leipzig churches. Somewhere between the theological concentration of Richter and the generous, unaffected Werner comes the 1966 Decca account from Karl Münchinger and his Stuttgarters. Among a large number of German recordings from the 1980s to the current day, Peter Schreier is another major Bach figure of the period. Vulgar velvet packaging jars with the tasteful and unobtrusive reading from Jos van Veldhoven and the Netherlands Bach Society. Wednesday, December 10, 2014, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood listens to 65 years’ worth of recordings. Riccardo Chailly’s Bach from the Gewandhaus espouses the ‘Third Way’, as Chailly calls it, where romantic and ‘period’ style find a happy synergy. It’s a generously conceived and well-directed but rather low-key reading. Soon after Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe followed in 1989 with a more intimate and soft-edged reading. Mark Padmore has developed into an Evangelist of far greater range since 1993. Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group J.S. This 1963 performance is aesthetically more in the Lehmann than Richter mould with its vocal intimacy (especially from the tender Evangelist Helmut Krebs) and open-hearted obbligato playing allowing the more pastoral qualities of the score to blossom. That is just one means to seek original coloration in the score, fervently explored with exquisite, if not always flawless, instrumental mosaics and radiant singing. Oratorio in the dramatic Handelian vein also encourages us to view this work on its own terms. Other than Rilling, Michel Corboz is probably the next most prolific ‘recorder’ of Bach’s major choral works (there are four B minor Masses). If the Mass in B minor is a compilation on the loftiest conceptual level – honed and crafted as the zenith of Bach’s creative life – then the Christmas Oratorio stands as a compilation of a quite different kind, a practical harvesting of six specific cantatas to be performed on the feast days of Christmas 1734 and the New Year. Before the singers get going, Bach seems to recall Jesus’s death with a melancholy Adagio in B minor for solo traverso and strings. 5. If you want to help us complete All of Bach, please subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/2vhCeFB and consider donating http://bit.ly/2uZuMj5.For the interview with conductor Jos van Veldhoven and tenor Thomas Hobbs on 'Kommt, eilet und laufet' go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUA7LRsJSiwFor more information on BWV 249 and this production go to http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-249/All of Bach is a project of the Netherlands Bach Society / Nederlandse Bachvereniging, offering high-quality film recordings of the works by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by the Netherlands Bach Society and its guest musicians. And then, on Sunday morning, the church resounded with the huge contrast of a Sinfonia with leading roles for three trumpets and timpani. Such is the case in Kurt Thomas’s second recording (with the Leipzig Thomaners) from 1958. Harnoncourt’s considered identity with each ‘event’ in the narrative places the work outside anything remotely pragmatic or generic. If there is a drawback, it’s the shortage of captivating solo singing and absorbing characterisation. Arias from J. S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, traditional carols, readings from sacred and secular texts The essence of this pioneering reading is captured in the visceral, chamber-like instrumental playing of Concentus Musicus, a kind of Renaissance-style pageantry to the choruses, an intimate acoustic and the extraordinary veracity of Kurt Equiluz’s Evangelist. A documentary on local Bachiana is an enjoyable bonus. In the first, Harnoncourt directs his Concentus Musicus Wien in a highly staged, decidedly dated (1981) and surprisingly doctrinal reading from the Waldhausen Church. “Triumph, rejoice!” – Bach’s oratrio of hope and renewal. Recit. While beautifully remastered, there’s a disillusioned air to proceedings and it is Karl Richter’s second recording – after a pedestrian, ‘work-in-progress’ attempt for Das Alte Werk in 1955 – that heralds the brave new world. J.S. This is the version for all-round delight and unexpected wonder. The closing chorus ‘Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine’ sent them on their way home to celebrate Holy Saturday. Falling somewhere between the ruminative landscape of Richter (at his best) and Rilling’s sleek, homogeneous ensemble, Schreier is generally more stylistically inquisitive than both and musically his reading is more eventful than all of Rilling’s. While only intermittently fulfilling, for many of the fixtures hard-wired into Rilling, this is still distinguished on many levels and never less than exciting. Other readings which miss the top table include a generically turned 1993 concert performance from Eric Ericson and his eponymous choir with a ropy Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, and a more recent reading from Hermann Max where over-accentuation and instrumental bulging expose the worst of ‘period’ ticks alongside some approximate intonation. The most memorable feature is a young Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau on the kind of form which earmarked him for posterity in the famous St Matthew for Richter a few months earlier. Anselm Hartinger, translation by Alice Noger-Gradon. | If selected recordings of the St Matthew Passion from this period are more durable for their insightful dramatic and poetic judgement, fewer revelations can be found in post-war Oratorios. The solo singing is seamlessly distinguished, from Anne Sofie von Otter’s bloom-filled and pliably decorated ‘Bereite dich’ to the recitative quartet at the end. For the 1st day of Christmas 0:00 2. Suzuki’s unwaveringly felicitous choices are noticeably evident as we approach the close of the cantata project, 15 years after this beautifully judged reading. Bach: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 / Part Two - For The Second Day Of Christmas - No. Far more telling are the thrills and spills of Diego Fasolis with his Lugano-based forces and imported soloists. Recorded for the project All of Bach on May 23th 2017 at the Walloon Church, Amsterdam. MA Music, Leisure and Travel Articles: A Bottomless Bucket of Bach - Christmas Oratorio [D. Satz] | BWV 248/19 “Schlafe, mein Liebster” - A Background Study with Focus on the Colla Parte Flauto Traverso Part [T. Braatz] BWV 248/1 Text: German-1 | NBA How best can the performer pace the narrative of the complete Oratorio in a story which lacks the urgency and action propelled by protagonists – the likes of Jesus, Peter, Pilate and the crowd in the Passions – while retaining the discrete contemplative world of each of the six ‘tableaux’ or cantatas? Ameling features in both Eugen Jochum’s and Philip Ledger’s recordings from the 1970s, the latter with the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, uncomfortably sharp and forced. This Oster-Oratorium (Easter oratorio) was first performed on Easter Sunday in 1725. When reviewing it in 1999, I considered Greg Fungfeld’s recording of the Bach Choir from Pennsylvania to be rather in the same vein, but on reacquaintance found agreeable swathes (especially in Parts 4 and 5) of an old American mainstream ‘house style’ which, with some better soloists, might have attracted more plaudits. Richter presents a corporate muscularity juxtaposed with solo vocal warmth, especially from the luminous Janowitz and Wunderlich. Bach - Christmas Oratorio Written in 1734, J. S. Bach's popular Christmas work is one of the choral masterpieces of the Baroque era - but the great composer took all of its tunes from other works. Gramophone is part of Werner was a quiet and unassuming poet of Bach and he is supported with almost peerless empathy by his long-term Evangelist, Helmut Krebs, and some radiant instrumental characterisation. Some may miss the cut and thrust of a Gardiner or the cultivated solo contributions in recordings by Corboz or Chailly but a meticulous attention to detail, superlative balance and speeds which allow the music to proceed with dignity in the gradual, contemplative unfolding of events are second nature to Suzuki. Netherlands Bach SocietyJos van Veldhoven, conductor Maria Keohane, sopranoDamien Guillon, altoThomas Hobbs, tenorSebastian Myrus, bass Rilling’s later version from 1999 follows a similar template but the choruses crackle here with considerably more glee and variety, and each part infectiously follows the last with connective logic (the wise men’s arrival from the East is handled with seasoned timing). The first line sung in the opening chorus of Part 6 reminds us that the character of Christmas is far from that of a Hallmark greeting card. I. One of the festive season's most established classics, Bach's Christmas Oratorio describes the nativity, the adoration of the shepherds and, slightly less festively, the circumcision and naming of Jesus. Christmas Oratorio II 1 (10). If the Mass in B minor is a compilation on the loftiest conceptual level – honed and crafted as the zenith of Bach’s creative life – then the Christmas Oratorio stands as a compilation of a quite different kind, a practical harvesting of six specific cantatas to be performed on the feast days of Christmas 1734 and the New Year.