Event
Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Parts 4, 5 & 6
The Christmas Oratorio, aside from being of one Johann Sebastian Bach's greatest choral masterworks, presents a number of interesting questions about what is known and what is speculation about this work. There is no question about the composition dates and the works first performance. The autographed score says that work was intended for the feast of Christmas in 1734-35 (Christmas Day to Epiphany; December 25 to January 6). One can then assume that the score was composed in the months immediately prior, and most of it during Advent, when cantatas were not performed in Leipzig, and Bach, as a result, enjoyed some rare free time. What is not clear is who wrote the non-Biblical texts. Like his Passion settings, there are three levels of text: Bible stories, chorale texts, and specially written verse, or free verse. Some scholars have suggested Picander, who worked with Bach on the St. Matthew Passion; others have concluded that Bach himself undertook the task. This subject remains a mystery.
Another interesting anomaly is the title of the work itself. Bach called the work an oratorio, but it really is a collection of six discrete cantatas. In fact each cantata was performed on a separate day, and are all really stand-alone pieces, with their own internal structures. While one thinks of oratorios like Messiah and Israel in Egypt, which are meant to be heard in one evening, it was not uncommon especially in Germany to divide up Oratorios into several parts, which would be heard on separate occasions.
The music that constitutes the Christmas Oratorio consists of what one would expect in a typical cantata: recitative, aria, chorales, and, of course, extensive choral writing. On December 19 at 8pm at the First Congregational Church in Great Barrington, you will have the opportunity to hear the final three cantatas, the first three having been presented last year at this time. We do hope to see you for this uplifting and simply stunning Christmas work.
-James Bagwell
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LocationFirst Congregational Church of Great Barrington
251 Main Street
Great Barrington, MA 01230
United States
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