In the liturgical calendar of the German reformation era in Saxony, the Christmas season started on 25 December (Christmas Day) and ended on 6 January (Epiphany). Most of this music was 'secular', that is written in praise of royalty or notable local figures, outside the tradition of performance within the church.[1]. The next performance was not until 17 December 1857 by the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin under Eduard Grell. The music represents a particularly sophisticated expression of the parody technique, by which existing music is adapted to a new purpose. This scoring was intended to symbolise the shepherds who are the subject of the second part. [43][44][45] The first chorale tune appears in the 5th movement of Part I: it is the tune known as Herzlich tut mich verlangen, that is, the same hymn tune which Bach used in his St Matthew Passion for setting several stanzas of Paul Gerhardt's "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden" ("O Sacred Head, Now Wounded"). This huge Christmas Oratorio comprises 6 cantatas in which Bach sets the original Christmas story into a dramatic whole. First Sunday after Christmas (31 December): First Sunday after Christmas (30 December 1725): The chorale melody used in No. The continuo part is open to interpretation in matters of scoring. For the 1723–24 Christmas season, during his first year as musical director of Leipzig's principal churches: Christmas Day: repeat performance of BWV 63, For the 1724-25 Christmas season, as part of his. cantatas. Ach mein herzliebes Jesulein, In the early 1730s, Bach composed a number of secular cantatas, including: Movements from the BWV 213, 214 and 215 cantatas form the basis of several movements of the Christmas Oratorio. Buy 2 SACDs online. If a Sunday fell between 27 December and 1 January, also on this first Sunday after Christmas a church service with music was held, and similar for a Sunday between 1 and 6 January (second Sunday after Christmas, or: first Sunday after New Year). B. Freut euch und jubiliert The oratorio was written for Christmas 1735 but was not performed again until 1857. By notational convention the recitatives are in common time. Nicolaikirche. Elizabeth Wimmer (soprano), Elvira Bill (alto), Andreas Post (tenor), Dominic Grosse (bass), Stuttgarter Hymnus-Chorknaben, Handel's Company, Rainer Johannes Homburg And I sall rock thee in my hert, The first part (for Christmas Day) describes the Birth of Jesus, the second (for December 26) the annunciation to the shepherds, the third (for December 27) the adoration of the shepherds, the fourth (for New Year's Day) the circumcision and naming of Jesus, the fifth (for the first Sunday after New Year) the journey of the Magi, and the sixth (for Epiphany) the adoration of the Magi. And never mair from thee depart. The Christmas Oratorio is in six parts, each part being intended for performance on one of the major feast days of the Christmas period. John Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio, composed in 1734, both reflects this new piety and conveys the composer's experience living through this tumult during his own childhood and early career. Bach lovers will be aware that the Christmas Oratorio, unlike those for Easter and the Ascension, is not a single composition but a collection of six cantatas composed for December 25th and festive days thereafter. 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. whole period of the Christmas festivities of 1734-35, starting with Part Although nearly every one of its movements makes for fascinating analysis, in this paper, I shall concentrate on the opening chorus. Listen to Bach: Christmas Oratorio by Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, Capella Amsterdam & Jan Willem de Vriend on Apple Music. In order to understand this complex work, one must examine its genre, composition, and meaning. Examples: for his 1973 recording, The different types of oboes referred to above are mostly called for at different points in each section. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is a series of six cantatas for the first, second and third days of Christmas, New Year’s Day, Epiphany, and the first Sunday after New Year. BWV 606 (in the Orgelbüchlein), 700, 701, 738 and 738a are chorale preludes based on the "Vom Himmel hoch" theme. this text in your own programmes, but if you do please (i), , and (ii) Instead, he used the model from BWV 215 for the bass aria "Erleucht' auch meine finstre Sinnen" in Part V. Similarly, the opening chorus to Part V, "Ehre sei dir Gott!" The Christmas Oratorio was conceived as a set of six I. Christmas and music seem to belong together. Musicologist Alfred Dürr[69] and others, such as Christoph Wolff[70] have suggested that Bach's sometime collaborator Picander (the pen name of Christian Friedrich Henrici) wrote the new text, working closely with Bach to ensure a perfect fit with the re-used music. They belong to the feast like roasted chestnuts and peppermint sticks. Reflections on Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” by John Harbison Composer John Harbison, whose ties to Boston’s cultural and educational communities are longstanding, celebrates his 80th birthday on December 20, 2018. 64, closing chorale of Part VI). The alto aria in Part III, "Schließe, mein Herze" was originally to have been set to the music for the aria "Durch die von Eifer entflammten Waffen" from BWV 215. It is in six parts, with each part to be performed on one of the days of the Christmas festivities, but is usually performed in two sections. 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. The Christmas Oratorio, or Weihnachts-Oratorium, is actually a set of six sacred cantatas, each depicting a different scene from Christ's birth. Bach removed the content for the Third Day of Christmas (December 27), John's Gospel, and split the story of the two groups of visitors—Shepherds and Magi—into two. It included at least three feast days that called for festive music during religious services: apart from Christmas (Nativity of Christ) and Epiphany (Visit of the Magi) the period also included New Year's Day (1 January), in Bach's time still often referred to as the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ. Also 26 and 27 December (second and third day of Christmas) were commonly considered feast days, with festive music in church. Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, Cantata 5: Erleucht' auch meine finstre Sinnen By Johann Sebastian Bach Sir Philip Ledger , Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau , Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Each part is a cantata for 1 of 6 feast days within the 12 days of the Christmas season: The story begins with the birth of Jesus (for Christmas … Bach composed the six-part “Christmas Oratorio” (“Weihnachts Oratorium”) in 1734 for two Leipzig churches, St. Thomas and St. Nicholas, for which he served as music director. Parts I and III are similarly scored for exuberant trumpets, while the Pastoral Part II (referring to the Shepherds) is, by contrast, scored for woodwind instruments and does not include an opening chorus. It was preceded by Advent, and followed by the period of the Sundays after Epiphany. Weihnachts-Oratorium (Christmas Oratorio), BWV 248. The Christmas Oratorio (German: Weihnachts-Oratorium), BWV 248, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season. Find release reviews and credits for Bach: Christmas Oratorio - John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir on AllMusic - Unlike the Passion settings and the oratorios of Bach's exact contemporary Handel, the six parts of his Christmas Oratorio were performed on separate days. [36][37][38] In addition to these sources, the sixth cantata is based on a largely lost church cantata, BWV 248a, of which at least the opening chorus is based on the lost secular cantata BWV 1160. Bach also included three settings of the chorale melody in his Christmas Oratorio. In the oratorio there is, however, no association with the pain and suffering evoked in the Passion. performed on separate days. ‘There is no more life-giving, joy-enhancing experience in Bach’s music than a great performance of the Christmas Oratorio,’ writes the composer’s biographer Nicholas Kenyon. John Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio, composed in 1734, both reflects this new piety and conveys the composer's experience living through this tumult during his own childhood and early career. and VI were given at the Thomaskirche, and Parts III and V at the Bach: Christmas Oratorio WEIHNACHTS-ORATORIUM, BWV 248. A well-known English version of that stanza is "Oh, my dear heart, young Jesus sweet", the first stanza of "Balulalow", as, for instance, sung by Sting:[47][48]. Recorded live in Grieghallen on 19 December 2018. John Butt’s Bach and Handel recordings with the Dunedin Consort have become things to look forward to, and this Christmas Oratorio is another mightily successful feather in his cap. Show all 65 parts - … The total running time for the entire work is nearly three hours. Stream songs including "Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 - Christmas Day: I. In particular, Bach made particularly effective use of recitative when combining it with chorales in no. 39 in part IV. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood Wednesday, December 10, 2014 Jonathan Freeman-Attwood listens to 65 years’ worth of recordings Before Bach composed his Christmas Oratorio for the 1734–35 Christmas season in Leipzig, he had already composed Christmas cantatas and other church music for all seven occasions of the Christmas season: Four of these third cycle cantatas for the Christmas season, BWV 110, 57, 151 and 16, were on a text from Georg Christian Lehms's Gottgefälliges Kirchen-Opffer cantata libretto cycle, which had been published in 1711. Unlike the Passion settings and the oratorios of Bach's exact [71] A new edition has been worked up by Neil Jenkins. The piece is often presented as a whole or split into two equal parts. 38 and 40 which frame the "Echo Aria" ("Flößt, mein Heiland"), no. The ease with which the new text fits the existing music is one of the indications of how successful a parody the Christmas Oratorio is of its sources. [46], Martin Luther's 1539 "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her" melody appears in three chorales: twice on a text by Paul Gerhardt in Part II of the oratorio, and the first time, in the closing chorale of Part I, with the 13th stanza of Luther's hymn as text. In detail: The oratorio was written for performance on six feast days of Christmas during the winter of 1734 and 1735. Mp3s Sheetmusic: Johann Sebastian Bach BWV 248 Christmas oratorio Oratorio Time: 135'00. [24][25] In the second half of the 1720s Bach often collaborated with Picander as a librettist for his cantatas. Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio Music, Theology, Culture Markus Rathey. In the last decades of the 17th century, the feast of Christmas in Lutheran Germany underwent a major transformation when theologians and local governments waged an early modern war on Christmas, discouraging riotous pageants and carnivalesque rituals in favor of more personal and internalized expressions of piety. The Christmas Oratorio is by far the longest and most complex work of the three.[1]. Rathey examines the cultural and historical background to Bach’s composition, including the transformation of Christmas as a festival in late 17th century Germany as the authorities sought to stamp out older, more boisterous forms of celebration. Important note. Based on the analysis of important parameters, ... in 2020 he co-authored a book with Henning Bey on Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (published by Verlag Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft). Bach, Background note by Neil Jenkins on his translation of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, 1999, Bach Werke Verzeichnis: Kleine Ausgabe – Nach der von Wolfgang Schmieder vorgelegten 2. In addition to the new compositions listed above, special mention must go to the recitatives, which knit together the oratorio into a coherent whole. The scoring below[72] refers to parts, rather than necessarily to individual players. The same melody reappears in the last movement of the oratorio (No. It is a reference to the pastoral music tradition of shepherds playing. Ausgabe, "Ein weiterer Kantatenjahrgang Gottfried Heinrich Stölzels in Bachs Aufführungsrepertoire? Bach: Christmas oratorio free music downloads: mp3s and video. The work belongs to a group of three oratorios written in 1734 and 1735 for major feasts, the other two works being the Ascension Oratorio (BWV 11) and the Easter Oratorio (BWV 249). Bach's Christmas Oratorio – which recording is best? [40], Like for most of his German-language church music, Bach used Lutheran hymns, and their Lutheran chorale tunes, in his Christmas Oratorio. [35][39] The trio aria in Part V "Ach, wenn wird die Zeit erscheinen?" Parts I and III are written in the keys of D major, part II in its subdominant key G major. Bach's Christmas Oratorio is, of course, a collection of six otherwise originally independent cantatas celebrating the joy of birth in general, and the Christian birth with all that that implies for believers in particular. I on Christmas Day, and ending with Part VI on Epiphany (January 6th). However, numbers 10, 12, 14, 17, 18, 19 and 21 in Part II call for 2 oboe d'amore and 2 oboe da caccia. It may have even been the case that the Christmas Oratorio was already planned when Bach wrote the secular cantatas BWV 213, 214 and 215, given that the original works were written fairly close to the oratorio and the seamless way with which the new words fit the existing music.[70]. Corelli’s Christmas Concerto, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and the Christmas sections from Handel’s Messiah are an integral part of the public and private soundscapes between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve. [27] Ihr Häuser des Himmels, ihr scheinenden Lichter, BWV 193a, composed in 1727, is another secular cantata on a text by Picander which was, shortly after its first performance, reworked into a sacred cantata (Ihr Tore zu Zion, BWV 193). Genug, mein Schatz geht nicht von hier, Und da die Engel von ihnen gen Himmel fuhren, 3 trumpets, timpani, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, strings (violin I, II, viola) and continuo (cello, violone, organ and bassoon), 3 trumpets, timpani, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, strings and continuo (cello, violone, organ and bassoon), 2 flutes, 2 oboe d'amore, 2 oboe da caccia, strings, continuo, Recitative (Evangelist, tenor; Angel, soprano), 2 oboe d'amore, 2 oboe da caccia, strings, continuo, 2 oboe d'amore, 2 oboe da caccia, continuo, Trumpet I, II, III, timpani, flute I, II, oboe I, II, strings, continuo, Flute I, II, oboe d'amore I, II, strings, continuo, Flute I, II, oboe I, II, strings, continuo, Horns I, II, oboe I, II, strings, continuo, Oboe d'amore I solo, organ senza continuo, Trumpet I, II, III, timpani, oboe I, II, strings, continuo, BWV 248a (lost church cantata); Words: Georg Werner, 1648, Before his Leipzig period he composed, as part of. "Jauchzet, Frohlocket, Auf, Preiset Die Tage", (Chorus)", "Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 - Christmas … The first (and, so far as we know, only) performances of the complete oratorio during Bach’s lifetime Adherents of theories specifying small numbers of performers (even to 'One Voice Per Part') may however choose to use numbers approaching one instrument per named part. To mark this birthday, the BSO will perform his Symphony No. It was incorporated within services of the two most important churches in Leipzig, St. Thomas and St. Nicholas. CMW & JB Oh, my deir hert, young Jesus sweit, CHAPTER 48: BWV 248, THE CHRISTMAS ORATORIO. The edition has not only a title—Weihnachts-Oratorium—connecting together the six sections, but these sections are also numbered consecutively. Prepare thy creddil in my spreit, Bach expresses the unity of the whole work within the music itself, in part through his use of key signatures. Download in Microsoft Word format. This resulted in a more understandable exposition of the Christmas story: The Flight into Egypt takes place after the end of the sixth part. 7 of part I ("Er ist auf Erden kommen arm") and even more ingeniously in the recitatives nos. As can be seen below, the work was only performed in its entirety at the St. Nicholas Church. Program Notes J.S. include an acknowledgement to the Aylesbury Choral Society and this That Bach saw the six parts as comprising a greater, unified whole is evident both from the surviving printed text and from the structure of the music itself. The first English-language monography on the Christmas Oratorio was published in 2004. Until 1999 the only complete English version of the Christmas Oratorio was that prepared in 1874 by John Troutbeck for the music publisher Novello. The original score also contains details of when each part was performed. Bach wrote the six cantatas to celebrate the Were he to have followed the calendar, the story would have unfolded as follows: This would have resulted in the Holy Family fleeing before the Magi had arrived, which was unsuitable for an oratorio evidently planned as a coherent whole. Bach: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, Cantata II: Pastoral Symphony is a popular song by Sir Neville Marriner | Create your own TikTok videos with the Bach: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, Cantata II: Pastoral Symphony song and explore 0 videos made by new and popular creators. Image credit: Appaloosa/Wikimedia Commons. [26] Bach reused the music of this cantata in the 1725 first version of his Easter Oratorio. Part V is meant to be performed on the Sunday between New Year's Day and, Samantha Owens, Barbara M. Reul, Janice B. Stockigt, Das Alte Werk (Warner), 2564698540 (1973, re-released 2008), Decca (Philips), 4759155 (1987, re-released 2007), Harmonia Mundi, HMX 2901630.31 (1997, re-released 2004), Channel Classics Records, CCS SA 20103 (2003), liturgical calendar of the German reformation era, Sanctus for six vocal parts, BWV 232/III (early version), 1728–29 Picander published a cantata libretto cycle, Late church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach § Christmas to Epiphany, List of chorale harmonisations by Johann Sebastian Bach § BWV 248, Bach's four-part chorales published by Birnstiel, "Vergiss mein nicht, vergiss mein nicht", BWV 505, Und es waren Hirten in derselben Gegend, BWV 248 II, Herrscher des Himmels, erhöre das Lallen, BWV 248 III, Fallt mit Danken, fallt mit Loben, BWV 248 IV, Herr, wenn die stolzen Feinde schnauben, BWV 248 VI, Sortable Index of the Chorales by J.S. The date is confirmed in Bach's autograph manuscript. 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