Glad tidings: Bach's Christmas Oratorio from the OAE

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment gave this performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio across two evenings. The whole work plays for about 130 minutes but it is usually given only partially or split across two nights. Ironically this performance then added extra music by Bach to make, one assumes, fuller evenings.

To be fair, Bach designed the work’s six cantatas, each differently scored, to be heard across six separate services over the Christmas season. So no artistic harm is done hearing the oratorio in this way. The fact that the work was compiled as much as composed, its six parts adapted (or “parodied”) from earlier secular cantatas, once led to it being regarded as of lower stature. But this superb account suggested that no apology needs to be made for the work.

From the opening celebratory trumpets and drums, and a strong choral entry, the seasonal tale asserted its charm and grip. The Evangelist (and tenor soloist) Guy Cutting announced both the miraculous birth, and himself as an ingratiating guide to everything to come. His singing of the three tenor arias was exemplary in style, that in Part 4 with two solo violins particularly memorable.

But each young soloist impressed, both in period musical manners, and the sense of involvement in recitative, solo and ensemble singing – including in the choir. Countertenor Hugh Cutting fully justified his burgeoning reputation. His Part 2 aria was the delightful ‘slumber song’ “Schlafe mein Liebster” (Sleep my dearest), while in Part 3 he duetted with leader Kati Debretzini’s supple violin in the only aria newly written for the Oratorio. Soprano Jessica Cale’s pure bright sound charmed in her ‘Echo aria’, her distanced echoing partner ideally balanced. Bass-baritone Florian Störtz has a voice of striking quality and flexibility, using it in the service of music and text, as shown by his singing of the only solo aria in Part 5, “Erleucht auch meine finstre sinnen” (Illumine my dark thoughts). Small wonder the OAE takes pride in its work with rising stars.

Each had the most eloquent support from the OAE players, the oboe playing of Katharina Spreckelsen in particular. The score has varied colour spread across its six parts, such as the pairs of horns and of oboes da caccia, appearing for just one part each. Of the many instrumental contributions, David Blackadder’s Baroque trumpet was as notable as usual, not least at the resplendent close of the whole work.

Both evenings added extra Bach, the first offering the motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (Sing unto the Lord a new song) which mirrored the joyous sense of the oratorio’s opening chorus. The singing of the double choir was highly spirited, especially when combining for the final four-part fugue, the twenty-voiced group exulting in its own formidable precision. The second evening opened with music from Bach’s Mass in B minor, a work also drawing on earlier pieces. Its Sanctus has a six part texture (SSAATB), and the choir sang brilliantly, even at the swift tempo Suzuki set for the Pleni sunt coeli.

Did we need that short curtain-raiser, when the splendid fugal chorus that opens Part 4 makes such a stirring start? But the performances of these extras and of the whole oratorio itself, led by Masaaki Suzuki with all the authority we expect, overcame any reservations. And though it informs most commentary, the music’s secular origins are now irrelevant. Bach’s retreads can carry a vehicle bringing us glad tidings, and for much of this Christmas Oratorio the (musical) “glory of the Lord shone around”.