Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-22-12

An early Christmas present. If you are one of the many celebrants who finds joy or solace or peace, each season, by playing Handel’s “Messiah” or letting the TV screen show the never-ending burning Yule log, here is an alternative.

Thanks to uncountable technologies, and innumerable traditions, you can enjoy a marvelous musical and spiritual experience by watching, or just listening to, the “Christmas Oratorio” of Johann Sebastian Bach. One of the greatest pieces of music in Western culture, in or out of churches, Bach’s oratorio is a full composition, like Handel’s, in many parts. There are full orchestra and full choir movements, solos, narrations, and instrumental sections. The words are from the Bible’s story of Christ’s birth; the music is some of the most stirring you will ever hear.

The very first part, “Exult! Rejoice!” (Jauchzet, Frohlocket in German) is an astounding cascade of choir and orchestra led by the motif of tympani drums’ notes.

Like the “Messiah,” it is in several parts and lasts almost three hours. It originally was performed in Bach’s St Nicholas Church, and some nights in St Thomas Church, in Leipzig, in 1734-35, essentially through the 12 nights of Christmas, in parts, beginning on Christmas Day.

Of several excellent performances on the web, I have chosen to share a recent video recorded at that very St Nicholas Church. See the grand Baroque setting as it appeared when first performed… listen to the period instruments, simulating the actual sounds of Bach’s music… enjoy the camera’s examination of the church’s details, and the community’s reverent models and landscapes of the Christmas story.

There are no English subtitles of the German texts, but you know the old, old story! You will hear the names of Jesus and Mary, Abraham and Old Testament prophets, and references to God and angels. The order of the six constituent cantatas’ subjects are: 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. I thought it better to be “home” in Bach’s own church, and to see the re-creation of a Baroque celebration, than to choose a performance-only video, or one of the versions with one old painting on display over the entire performance.

I hope this brings extra joy, special comfort, and stirring inspiration to you this Christmas season. Bach has been called “the Fifth Evangelist,” and works like this illustrate why. Georg Christoph Biller leads the Thomanerchor and the Gewandhausorchester Leizig.

Click: Bach’s Christmas Oratorio

A Music Ministry Special

Christmas week. Even the most spiritual people among us – plausibly, the MOST spiritual among us – easily can be caught up in the THINGS of this week. Touching bases, checking lists, doing this and that, going here and there… all of which is legitimate. All of which we routinely regret, to an extent. All of which we resolve, nest year, to balance with quiet time to reflect on the meaning of Christmas.

At your service, folks. Here is a 2010-style method of slowing your pace, soothing your soul, and communing quietly with, maybe, your family; with God… and with Johann Sebastian Bach.

At the end of this message is a link to a performance of Bach’s immortal CHRISTMAS ORATORIO. We are used to hearing Handel’s “Messiah,” at least several famous portions. No less beautiful, and powerful, and spiritual, is Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio.”

An oratorio is best explained as a religious opera without a stage. Drama based on biblical stories is presented employing overtures and instrumental movements, solos and choruses, and often a narrator – an orator, providing one theory of its name – in the form of a singing narrator who stands apart from the “action.” Oratorios sometimes were performed outside the settings of churches. The most famous composer of Baroque oratorios is Händel, who wrote one German, two Italian, and seventeen English-language oratorios.

The opening of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Jauchzet, Frohlocket!, with timpani drums tuned to different notes, is among the grandest music Bach wrote. And the close of part two, Wir Singen Dir In Deinem Heer, seamlessly combining two previous beautiful melodies, is magical. The Sinfonia, a purely instrumental movement, is sublime. Does it advance the “action”? – No, except to set the mood of the peaceful night in Bethlehem, where the shepherds watched over their flocks.

May I invite the uninitiated to this glorious piece, or to Baroque music in general: Let Bach, and the biblical text, carry you on a spiritual trip. The Bible is quoted; the chorus and soloists take the part of Christmas-week players; and the ancient, beautiful music will touch your soul. Give this time… and it will be a special part of your Christmas.

In this video, Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists; the setting is the historic Herderkirche in Weimar, Germany, a city where Bach once lived and worked. The Christmas Oratorio originally was performed on six different days, from Christmas to Epiphany. Technically it is six cantatas, a form within the liturgy of which Bach was master.

The small choir… the original ancient instruments… the soloist in the box… the setting of the historic church… bring you close to the music as Bach would have conducted it himself. The first such time was Christmas of 1734.

I am linking you to full-screen downloads of this masterpiece (I daresay many of you will rush to find the DVD version of this to watch on a bigger screen next year!) Of several good versions available on the web, this is the only one with English subtitles; when they don’t appear, it is because singers are repeating passages. ALSO: this is not just “sit back and close your eyes.” Every once in a while a download will end, and a screen will appear with freeze-frame options. Click the largest box, upper right, labeled “Up Next,” or the logically numbered screens in the strip below.  (This will give you a chance to take a break if needed – this is more than two hours long, like “Messiah,” so plan some time! – or, you will see, you will want to repeat a passage whose musical beauty and spiritual power has impressed you!

Take time. Make time. Have a merry, and meaningful, and musical, Christmas!

Click this link: Christmas Oratorio — J S Bach