Christmas Oratorio ()
We are excited to present Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, a magnificent work for choir, orchestra and soloists. A treat for your countdown to Christmas!
Written for the Christmas period of 1734 in 6 parts, each part intended for one of the major feast days of the Christmas season — from the burst of joy announcing the birth of Jesus, to the visit of the three Wise Men. We will be performing parts 1, 2, 3 and 6.
Doors open at 18:45 with a bar available from that time.
Pieces
- Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 (1734) — Bach
Venue
Lichfield Cathedral, The Close, Lichfield, WS13 7LD [map]
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Reviews
Christmas Oratorio
Christmas seems to come earlier every year! Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, a series of six cantatas, was written to be sung on six days between Christmas and Epiphany, but Lichfield experienced the joys of four parts of this profound and challenging work on November 23rd in the Cathedral!
Lichfield Cathedral Chorus certainly got us into the mood of rejoicing right from their opening notes. Aficionados of Bach may have been slightly surprised to hear the opening words “Come now with gladness”, as conductor Ben Lamb had chosen to use the new translation of the text, but the diction was certainly good enough for us to hear the words! The delightful playing of the Lichfield Camerata set the scene in a dance-like opening, and the choir followed suit. Bach’s choirs in Leipzig, for whom this was written, probably numbered around twenty or so singers. Here we had almost ninety, and with this number the lightness of touch required to master all the technical runs was at times difficult to achieve, resulting in an occasionally imprecise choral sound and slightly sluggish attacks, but this did improve as the evening progressed.
Lessons could be learned from Robin Lowery-Moreton’s excellent portrayal as the Evangelist, telling the familiar story of the birth of Christ and the events following it, as well as singing some reflective tenor arias. His crisp, rhythmic articulation was achieved by not being tempted to over-sing but to keep the very instrumental and challenging lines light and easy on the ear. He also maintained a joyous expression, and communicated his joy to the audience with his delightful smile!
Alto soloist Alexis Hutchinson also maintained a clear and rhythmic sound, with her aria “Prepare yourself Zion” demonstrating strong and apparently effortless technical skill, supported by some lovely oboe lines, although a little more warmth of tone would have helped her later aria “Slumber Beloved”…or perhaps the orchestra needed to be kept a little quieter for this beautiful moment.
The Chorus came into their own with the Chorales, hymn tunes which many of the original congregation would have known and probably sung, and here we enjoyed the richness of the well-balanced choral sound and also the magic of Bach’s incredible capacity for colourful and unexpected harmonies. The choir’s seating arrangement, with basses creating the essential core and tenors “on high” projecting well over the masses below them, worked perfectly, and the chorus at the start of Part 6, “Lord, when the foe is howling madly”, was perhaps the most dramatic of the whole work and really came to life, with the return of the brilliant baroque trumpets and timpani in strong support.
In fact this second half of the evening gave us more variety and confident singing all round, and the duet aria between soprano Hannah Grove and baritone Fran Ambrose was beautifully balanced and very stylish. There were other moments in the evening where the soprano was a little under-strength in her mid-range, and occasionally strident on the higher notes, but she generally had a true voice which suited the period well. Fran Ambrose gave his usual accomplished and expressive performance, never over-dominant and always sensitive to the music’s demands.
Bach gives no quarter to his singers…they are expected to perform on a par with the instruments, and they had a strong band to match up to in the Camerata, which was glued together by a splendid continuo line. Liam Condon on the chamber organ worked beautifully with the cello, bass and bassoon as required, and was even able to seamlessly gather a slightly irregular “moment” under his wing at the end of one movement!
It was clear that the choir had worked really hard to prepare for this concert in a relatively short space of time for such a technical work. It would have benefited from a slightly earlier, before-the-beat attack on many entries to overcome the time-lag, and a lesson from Robin on looking joyous and holding the copy up…and smiling! Nevertheless, this was a great start to the real, non-commercial side of Christmas…we are fortunate to have such a body of singers who are prepared to tackle these great works, and will soon be launching into the very different but equally profound Dream of Gerontius by Elgar for their next concert in May.
Megan Barr, November 2024