Bach Oratorio

Bach’s lost St Mark Passion was first performed in Leipzig on Good Friday 1731 and a second time in 1744 in a revised version. Though Bach's music is lost, the libretto by Picander is still extant, and from this, the work can to some degree be reconstructed. Unlike Bach's earlier existing passions (St John Passion and St Matthew Passion), the Markus-Passion is probably a parody – it recycles previous works. Which of his own works Bach may have taken for his St Mark Passion led to numerous speculations. Differently from further reconstructions the Frankfurt musicologist Prof. Karl Böhmer used the revised Picander text from 1744 which schedules one Aria and a chorale more than the 1731 version. Other parts have been revised and complemented.

This recording is of the rarely performed late fourth version of the St. John Passion. Cantus Cölln performs the entire work as a double vocal quartet, producing vocal brilliance and immaculate solo sections. The ensemble is one of the most renowned vocal groups for Renaissance and Baroque music.

We tend to think of Johann Mattheson (1681–1764) as a theorist first and foremost, and as a composer almost as an afterthought. To be sure, he competed in a world in Hamburg that at one time or another featured Reinhard Keiser, Georg Philipp Telemann, and George Frederick Handel; indeed, all of these were friends, sometimes rivals, and in one case, he and Handel even fought a duel over an opera, Cleopatra (Mattheson would have won, but a metal coat button deflected his sword, fortunately both for posterity and Handel). As a singer, he was well regarded, but by 1705 he had traded his performance chops for a real job as private secretary to the English ambassador.

Einer der Höhepunkte des Bachfestes Leipzig 2014 im 300. Geburtsjahr Carl Philip Emanuel Bachs war die Aufführung und Einspielung seines Oratoriums "Die Israeliten in der Wüste" mit den Experten für historische Aufführungspraxis des Neuen Orchesters & Chorus Musicus Köln unter der Leitung von Christoph Spering.

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 now lost church cantata, BWV 248a. The date is confirmed in Bach's autograph manuscript. The next performance was not until 17 December 1857 by the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin under Eduard Grell. The Christmas Oratorio is a particularly sophisticated example of parody music. The author of the text is unknown, although a likely collaborator was Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander).

In the historic Weimar Herder Church Sir John Eliot Gardiner finds the perfect setting for his recording of the Bach Christmas Oratorio. Against the backdrop of the dramatic altar and Lucas Granach paintings, the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists perform Gardiner's new interpretation of this classic piece. With this interpretation of the Christmas Oratorio, Gardiner shows himself once again to be an incontestible specialist of Bach's music.

The recommending word for Philip Pickett and the New London Consort's recording of J. S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio is balance. There is a most satisfying balance on every level of this recording-between singers, between singers and instrumentalists, and between instrumentalists. Pickett mediates between the extreme options for choral forces-one per part at one extreme and a mammoth Romantic-sized choir at the other-by placing several singers on each choral part and drawing his soloists from that choir. Listening to the chorales and chorus movements of Bach's monumental creation will reveal the wisdom of Pickett's decision.

Christmas Oratorio is topical, it’s also universal. It doesn’t require lights or tinsel or presents under the tree to instruct, inspire, and/or entertain, especially if it is presented in as fine a performance as this one fashioned by Stephen Layton and his cohort. Layton is the director of music at Trinity College, Cambridge (having succeeded Richard Marlow), and his choir is top-notch, as is the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, mercifully identified as OAE. OAE’s roster is rife with such familiar names from the period instruments movement as Margaret Faultless (who is just that here) and Alison Bury. To mention Anthony Robson, oboe, and David Blackadder, trumpet, is not to slight any of the other players.

Wie ein Monolith ragt der Dirigent, Organist und Cembalist Karl Richter in der Geschichte der evangelischen Kirchenmusik und der Bach-Interpretation der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts auf. Als junger Mann beschloss Karl Richter, inspiriert von der mitteldeutschen Kantorentradition seiner Heimat, dem frühen Eindruck des Klangs der sächsischen Orgeln und der Werke Johann Sebastian Bachs, sein Leben in den Dienst an der Musica sacra zu stellen. In seinem kurzen Leben, das nur 54 Jahre währte, setzte er diesen Vorsatz in den Kirchendiensten an der Thomas-kirche zu Leipzig, an der Markuskirche zu München, in Konzerten, Schallplattenaufnahmen für Teldec und Deutsche Grammophon und als Lehrer an der Münchner Hochschule für Musik, in einer Lebensleistung von fast unüber-schaubarem Ausmaß ins Werk. Es gelang ihm dabei, internationale Maßstäbe zu setzen.