The jubilant Christmas of Bach

The Baroque Orchestra of Sevilla (Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla (OBS)), whose excellence and international acclamation is more than apparent, returns to the Teatro de la Maestranza to collaborate with the best celebration of Christmas imaginable. For his Christmas Oratorio BWV 248, Bach dropped his common practice of relating a cantata to the specific gospel reading for the day of its interpretation. Here, the composer tells the Christmas story from the birth of Jesus to the adoration of the Magi in a narrative manner which is more agile and understandable. And, of course, celebratory and, often, musically jubilant.

The “parodic style”, maintains an overall (and sophisticated) coherence in spite of being “separated” in six different parts. Johann Sebastian Bach composed 6 cantatas to premiere, one by one, at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, during the festive season: December 25 to 27, 1734 and January 1, 2 and 6 of 1735. This sequence, at first, might suggest a dispersed work. However, the manuscript clearly indicates this is an “oratorio” and specialists have underlined the coherence and the unitary personality of the music. At least twenty of the pieces in the oratorio originate in previous secular pieces of Bach.

Along with the children’s chorus of Windsbach conducted by Ludwig Böhme, the Baroque Orchestra of Sevilla will be accompanied by an excellent quartet of singers; Isabel Schicketanz, Marie Henriette Reinhold, Patrick Grahl and Thomas Laske. We will hear 4 of the 6 cantatas of the Oratorio in this performance: No. 1 –The birth; No. 2 The annunciation to the shepherds; No. 3 –Adoration of the shepherds -and No. 6 Adoration of the Magi.
 

Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, Johann Sebastian Bach Cantatas I, II, III, VI