Your annual encounter with the finest Christmas music of all time
When you hear the jubilant words ‘Jauchzet, frohlocket!’, you know it’s time for your annual encounter with the finest Christmas music of all time. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is the most brilliant example of musical recycling. It brings together six Christmas cantatas, some of which originate in special works for royal birthdays. For Bach it was only a short step to the ode to that other king: Christ. The Christmas story is told by an evangelist in recitatives which, like Bach’s Passions, alternate with lyrical arias, contemplative choruses and consoling chorales. An exuberant orchestral part – including pounding tympani and the necessary blaring of trumpets – adds suitable splendour to the birth of the Messiah. Together with the Nederlands Kamerkoor conducted by Peter Dijkstra, B’Rock lives it up in this festive masterpiece.