Christmas Oratorio

History#

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). It was preceded by Advent, and followed by the period of the Sundays after Epiphany. 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. 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).

1714–1729#

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: * Before his Leipzig period he composed, as part of his Weimar cantata cycle: ** Christmas, : Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63. ** First Sunday after Christmas, : Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn, BWV 152. * 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, ** Second Day of Christmas: Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, BWV 40. ** Third Day of Christmas: Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget, BWV 64. ** New Year’s Day: Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 190. ** Second Sunday after Christmas (): Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind, BWV 153. ** Epiphany: Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65. * For the 1724–25 Christmas season, as part of his chorale cantata cycle (except for the Latin Sanctus): ** Christmas Day: Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, BWV 91 (early version), and Sanctus for six vocal parts, BWV 232/III (early version). ** Second Day of Christmas: Christum wir sollen loben schon, BWV 121. ** Third Day of Christmas: Ich freue mich in dir, BWV 133. ** First Sunday after Christmas (31 December): Das neugeborne Kindelein, BWV 122. ** New Year’s Day: Jesu, nun sei gepreiset, BWV 41. ** Epiphany: Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, BWV 123. * Cantatas of Bach’s third cantata cycle, for the Christmas seasons of 1725–26 and 1726–27: ** Christmas Day (1725): Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110. ** Second Day of Christmas (1725): Selig ist der Mann, BWV 57. ** Third Day of Christmas (1725): Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt, BWV 151. ** First Sunday after Christmas (30 December 1725): Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu Ende, BWV 28. ** New Year’s Day (1726): Herr Gott, dich loben wir, BWV 16. ** Second Sunday after Christmas (): Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid, BWV 58 (early version). 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. In the second half of the 1720s Bach often collaborated with Picander as a librettist for his cantatas. The Shepherd Cantata, BWV 249a, first performed on 23 February 1725, one of Bach’s secular cantatas, is an early example of such cantata. Bach reused the music of this cantata in the 1725 first version of his Easter Oratorio. 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). In 1728–29 Picander published a cantata libretto cycle, leading to at least two further Christmas season cantatas by Bach: * Christmas Day 1728, or possibly 1729: Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe, BWV 197a. * New Year’s Day 1729: Gott, wie dein Name, so ist auch dein Ruhm, BWV 171, with music in part adapted from the secular cantata, likewise on a text by Picander, Zerreißet, zersprenget, zertrümmert die Gruft, BWV 205. A Christmas oratorio presented as a cycle of six cantatas, to be performed on several days during the Christmas period, was not uncommon in Bach’s day: Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, whose church music was not unknown to Bach and Leipzig churchgoers, had composed such Christmas oratorios in 1719 and 1728.

Models from earlier compositions#

In the early 1730s, Bach composed a number of secular cantatas, including: * So kämpfet nur, ihr muntern Töne, BWV 1160, on a libretto by Picander, first performed on (music lost, apart from later versions of the opening chorus). * Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen, BWV 213 (Hercules at the Crossroads), on a libretto by Picander, performed on . * Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten!, BWV 214, performed on . * Preise dein Glücke, gesegnetes Sachsen, BWV 215, performed on . Movements from the BWV 213, 214 and 215 cantatas form the basis of several movements of the Christmas Oratorio. The trio aria in Part V “Ach, wenn wird die Zeit erscheinen?” is believed to be from a similarly lost source, and the chorus from the same section “Wo ist der neugeborne König” is from the 1731 St Mark Passion, BWV 247.

Chorales#

Like for most of his German-language church music, Bach used Lutheran hymns, and their Lutheran chorale tunes, in his Christmas Oratorio. 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”). The same melody reappears in the last movement of the oratorio (No. 64, closing chorale of Part VI). In the oratorio there is, however, no association with the pain and suffering evoked in the Passion. 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. 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 in 2009 by English musician Sting: The Christmas Oratorio is exceptional in that it contains a few hymn settings, or versions of hymn tunes, for which there is no known earlier source than Bach’s composition: * The chorale melody used in No. 33 of the oratorio appears to be based on Johann Georg Ebeling’s 1666 “Warum sollt ich mich denn grämen” hymn tune. The Zahn number of Ebeling’s original is 6456a. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio version of the tune is Zahn 6462, first printed in 1769 as No. 143 in the second volume of Bach’s four-part chorales published by Birnstiel. * No. 38 and 40 set the first stanza of Johann Rist’s “Jesu, du mein liebstes Leben” hymn text: the setting is Bach’s – it is not based on any known pre-existing hymn tune. * The tune used for Johann Rist’s “Hilf, Herr Jesu, lass gelingen” hymn text in No. 42 of the oratorio appears to be an original composition by Bach. It is mentioned as such in the last volume of Johannes Zahn’s , as first of four late additions to his catalogue of German Evangelical hymn tunes. There are very few known hymn tunes by Bach (he used Lutheran hymn tunes in the large majority of his sacred compositions, but rarely one of his own invention): apart from what can be found in the Christmas Oratorio, there appears to be one, partly inspired by a pre-existing melody, in the motet Komm, Jesu, komm, BWV 229 (composed before 1731–32), and at least one entirely by Bach, “Vergiss mein nicht, vergiss mein nicht”, BWV 505, in (published in 1736).

Gospel narrative#

Like for his other oratorios, and his Passion settings, Bach employed a narrative based on the Gospel in his Christmas Oratorio. The Gospel narrative of this oratorio followed, to a certain extent, the respective Gospel readings of the church services where the six cantatas of the Christmas Oratorio were to be performed for the first time. The six services of the Christmas season 1734–35 where the oratorio’s cantatas were to be performed had these Gospel readings: # Christmas Day: (theme: Nativity, Annunciation to the shepherds and the angels’ song). # Second Day of Christmas: (theme: Adoration of the Shepherds). # Third Day of Christmas: – prologue of the Gospel of John, also known as Hymn to the Word. # New Year’s Day: (theme: Circumcision of Jesus) # Sunday after New Year: (theme: the Flight into Egypt) # Epiphany: (theme: Wise Men From the East) As usual in most of his oratorios, and all of his Passions, the Evangelist character enunciated the Gospel text in sung recitatives, except the passages in direct speech, which were sung by soloists or choral groups representing the characters who spoke these texts according to the Gospel narrative. The Gospel text included by Bach in his six Christmas Oratorio cantatas consists of: # , i.e. part of the Christmas Day reading. # , i.e. second half of the Christmas Day reading. # , i.e. text of the Second Day of Christmas Gospel reading. # , i.e. the New Year’s Day Gospel reading # , i.e. part of the Gospel reading for the Epiphany feast # , i.e. second half of the Gospel reading for Epiphany The Gospel readings for the Third Day of Christmas (Prologue of the Gospel of John), and for the Sunday after New Year (the Flight to Egypt) are not directly used in the Christmas Oratorio. In detail:

First performance#

The oratorio was written for performance on six feast days of Christmas during the winter of 1734 and 1735. The original score also contains details of when each part was performed. It was incorporated within services of the two most important churches in Leipzig, St. Thomas and St. Nicholas. As can be seen below, the work was only performed in its entirety at the St. Nicholas Church. First performances: * 25 December 1734: Part I – ’early in the morning’ at St. Nicholas; ‘in the afternoon’ at St. Thomas * 26 December 1734: Part II – morning at St. Thomas; afternoon at St. Nicholas * 27 December 1734: Part III – morning at St. Nicholas * 1 January 1735: Part IV – morning at St. Thomas; afternoon at St. Nicholas * 2 January 1735: Part V – morning at St Nicholas * 6 January 1735: Part VI – morning at St. Thomas; afternoon at St. Nicholas

Text#

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. Musicologist Alfred Dürr and others, such as Christoph Wolff 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. 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. A new edition has been worked up by Neil Jenkins.

Narrative structure#

The structure of the story is defined to a large extent by the particular requirements of the church calendar for Christmas 1734/35. Bach abandoned his usual practice when writing church cantatas of basing the content upon the Gospel reading for that day in order to achieve a coherent narrative structure. Were he to have followed the calendar, the story would have unfolded as follows: # Birth and Annunciation to the Shepherds # The Adoration of the Shepherds # Prologue to the Gospel of John # Circumcision and Naming of Jesus # The Flight into Egypt # The Coming and Adoration of the Magi 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 removed the content for the Third Day of Christmas (27 December), John’s Gospel, and split the story of the two groups of visitors—Shepherds and Magi—into two. This resulted in a more understandable exposition of the Christmas story: # The Birth # The Annunciation to the Shepherds # The Adoration of the Shepherds # The Circumcision and Naming of Jesus # The Journey of the Magi # The Adoration of the Magi The Flight into Egypt takes place after the end of the sixth part. 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 edition has not only a title—Weihnachts-Oratorium—connecting together the six sections, but these sections are also numbered consecutively. As John Butt has mentioned, this points, as in the Mass in B minor, to a unity beyond the performance constraints of the church year.

Music#

Bach expresses the unity of the whole work within the music itself, in part through his use of key signatures. Parts I and III are written in the keys of D major, part II in its subdominant key G major. 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. Part IV is written in F major (the relative key to D minor) and marks the furthest musical point away from the oratorio’s opening key, scored for horns. Bach then embarks upon a journey back to the opening key, via the dominant A major of Part V to the jubilant re-assertion of D major in the final part, lending an overall arc to the piece. To reinforce this connection, between the beginning and the end of the work, Bach re-uses the chorale melody of Part I’s “Wie soll ich dich empfangen” in the final chorus of Part VI, “Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen”; this choral melody is the same as of “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden”, which Bach used five times in his St Matthew Passion. The music represents a particularly sophisticated expression of the parody technique, by which existing music is adapted to a new purpose. Bach took the majority of the choruses and arias from works which had been written some time earlier. 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.

Instrumentation#

The scoring below refers to parts, rather than necessarily to individual players. 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. ;Part I: 3 trumpets, timpani, 2 transverse flutes, 2 oboes (both of which double on oboe d’amore) 2 violins, viola, continuo group ;Part II: 2 flutes, 2 oboes d’amore, 2 oboes da caccia, 2 violins, viola, continuo ;Part III: 3 trumpets, timpani, 2 flutes, 2 oboes (both of which double on oboe d’amore), 2 violins, viola, continuo ;Part IV: 2 horns, 2 oboes, 2 violins, viola, continuo ;Part V: 2 oboes d’amore, 2 violins, viola, continuo ;Part VI: 3 trumpets, timpani, 2 oboes (both of which double on oboe d’amore), 2 violins, viola, continuo ;Notes

Parts and numbers#

Each section combines choruses (a pastoral Sinfonia opens Part II instead of a chorus), chorales and from the soloists recitatives, ariosos and arias. By notational convention the recitatives are in common time.

Reception#

In Göran Tunström’s 1983 Swedish novel Juloratoriet (The Christmas Oratorio) and its 1996 film version, Bach’s work is important for the leading characters. The first English-language monograph on the Christmas Oratorio was published in 2004. It was a translation of a 2002 Dutch-language study by . The 2024 German-Austrian TV film Bach – A Christmas Miracle tells a fictional story about the creation of the Christmas Oratorio in the context of local politics and domestic conflicts in the Bach family.

Cited sources#

• • • Preface in English and German. * * * * * * * * * *

External links#

• Complete text and instrumentation: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI
• Bach Cantatas Website: Details, recordings & reviews
• Donald Satz: A Bottomless Bucket of Bach – Christmas Oratorio (April 2000): Details and comparison of four recordings
• , John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir, Claron McFadden and Katharine Fuge (soprano), Christoph Genz (tenor), Bernarda Fink (alto), Dietrich Henschel (bass)
• , , Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, NDR Vokalensemble, Elbphilharmonie 7 December 2023