'Tis (almost) the Season JSB

For many years, my personal acknowledgement that Christmas is upon me has been a private recital of Bach's 'Christmas Oratorio'. This has usually taken place in the week before Christmas with the First Part (there are six) repeated at some point on the Day itself, when it was originally performed. For several years my recording of choice was from 1958, conducted by Kurt Thomas and featuring Agnes Giebel, Marga Hoffgen, Josef Traxel and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. I still have a great affection for this recording not least because it features the choir from 'Bach's church' St Thomas Leipzig and was recorded there. A slightly later recording of 1965 conducted by the redoubtable Karl Richter has an even more impressive line-up of soloists, Gundula Janowitz, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich and Franz Crass and the Munich Bach Choir and Orchestra. This much admired version originally benefitting from the unsurpassed luxury presentation of the Archiv Produktion record label has the opulent feel of a musical Rolls Royce and will still be required listening for many Bach enthusiasts of 70+. The same will be true of Karl Munchinger's version (1967) on Decca - a superb recording with another stellar line up: Elly Ameling, Helen Watts, Peter Pears and Tom Krause. Fritz Werner's recording of 1963 is much venerated by connoisseurs and the first properly 'authentic' performance by Nikolaus Harnoncourt on Das Alte Werk will be self recommending for many.

My favoutite recording has long been John Eliot Gardiner's 1987 version with the Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and a pretty much ideal solo line-up of Nancy Argenta, Anne Sofie von Otter, Anthony Rolfe Johnson (Evangelist), Hans Peter Blochwitz and Olaf Bar. Blochwitz in particular is sensational: he has the ideal voice and technique for this repertoire. The choir and orchestral line up reads like a Who's Who of baroque music specialists of the day. Other later versions which have attracted admirers are from Diego Fasolis' (2003), Harnoncourt's second recording (2007), and John Butt's scholarly version, with a far smaller choir than usual (2015).

If it seems to me there are more excellent recordings of 'Christmas Oratorio' than there are of 'Messiah', then that may well be because the Handel has a cultural and sociological significance for me that the Bach lacks (as I am British not German). However I love the music of both, as music, equally. 'Christmas Oratorio' has a huge emotional range, encompassing the pure exhilarating joy of the opening chorus 'Jauchzet, frohlocket' ('Rejoice, exult'), regal pomp 'Grosse Herr' ('Great Lord'), the tenderness of the alto aria 'Schlafe, mein Liebster' ('Sleep my Dearest') and the serenity of the 'echo' soprano aria 'Flosst mein Heiland' ('My Saviour does Thy Name instil the tiniest grain of terror?). The effect of the whole is pretty much overwhelming...

The methods of the two composers differ fundamentally. As I mentioned in my previoius Blog on 'Messiah', Handel's work is more of a meditation than a narration but Bach, using the same method he adopts in his Passions, employs an Evangelist to tell the Christmas story. This is then embellished by music that involves the main characters in this story more or less directly: the shepherds are urged to hasten to Bethlehem, Mary sings a lullaby to the infant Jesus and so on. When listening to 'Messiah' I picture a large, opulent concert hall or one of the grander British cathedrals, but listening to 'Christmas Oratorio' I envisage a simply adorned, white walled Lutheran church. These carry the same spiritual and emotional weight as far as I am concerned, as do the works they represent in my mind's eye

To end with an anecdote. In 1977 a friend asked me if I'd like to attend a recording session of 'Christmas Oratorio' in King's College Chapel (he'd been a chorister and choral scholar at King's and had been asked back to augment the choir). The solo line-up was impressive on paper: Elly Ameling, Janet Baker, Robert Tear and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; Philip Ledger was conducting. I arrived at the Chapel full of excitement only to be told that DF-D, who'd arrived from the Dorchester in a chauffeuer driven Daimler, did not want an audience of any kind. I was, therefore, obliged to leave. It is not simply sour grapes when I say this is not a version I'd recommend!

https://open.spotify.com/album/1n31cAr8nkBLVb7XacDIqU?si=x9tUR-KqQVyqZ042Ng2xDg

Next up, Schutz 'The Christmas Story'