The Christmas Oratorio
It’s been a while since I last wrote about Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. The last entry was a blog post about My Favourite Seasonal Music for Christmas back in 2016, and the original post about this work dates back to the beginning of my blog back in 2015.
Nevertheless, the Christmas Oratorio is on constant repeat in the last 2-3 weeks leading up to Christmas every single year. It is as essential as mulled wine, seasonal decorations, and home made Christmas cookies. This year, due to Covid, I probably won’t have any of the first, and a strict diet over the last months stops me from doing the latter.
I’m very happy that listening to Bach is totally carb-free (even though it can be very sweet), and at least played from the stereo very much compatible with social distancing.
Bach: Christmas Oratorio – John Butt – Dunedin Consort (Linn 2016)
I had already mentioned John Butt’s recording in my 2016 post, but didn’t own it at the time. Linn Records has a pretty strict no-streaming policy, so I ended up buying it blindly, given how much I like the Dunedin Consort’s other big Bach works.
The Dunedin’s recording of the St Matthew Passion is one of my 25 Essential Classical Albums, their St John’s passion is equally great, and I can also recommend the recordings of Bach’s Magnificat, Händel’s Messiah also Mozart’s Requiem for that matter. So in short, I didn’t take too much of a risk.
And sure enough, I wasn’t disappointed. The orchestral playing is a beautiful as ever, and the singers are doing an excellent job. The only two things to mention: most of the singers are non native speakers, and while they are doing quite a decent job with the German pronunciation, if you’re picky, you may have an issue with this.
And, for some even more tricky maybe, the typical Dunedin Consort approach of having One Voice Per Part, a concept introduced by Joshua Rifkin in the 1980s. If your Bach oratorio reference is Karl Richter, you’ll be disappointed.
I really like it though. It gives it a very particularly intimate feel. I’m still rotating between the Dunedin’s version, and my other favourites, Gardiner, Herreweghe, and the occasional Suzuki. But this is very much among the best. And if you care for these things, this is a truly “audiophile” version, it is really well recorded.
My rating: 4 stars (It’s a truly beautiful album but I’m still waiting for my imaginary “perfect” recording)
You can find it here (Linn Records)
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Thanks a lot for posting this review. I would agree with the reservations about the german pronounciation. As a german native, I find especially Nicholas Mulroy problematic. But that may not be so important for non german speaking people.
What bothers me the most ( you even could say saddens me) is the lisp of Claire Wilkinson. It ruins the whole recording for me. She has such a wonderful voice but I cannot manage to ignore it. There are just too many „s“ sounds in the wonderful alto arias. I wonder if it is only me, since I remember her getting rave reviews in the press. What do ypu think? Doesn‘t it bother you as much?
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Thanks Klaus. Haven’t noticed Claire in particular. But I must admit I’m barely listening to the lyrics any more having heard this piece so many times. But the great orchestral playing really fascinated me every time.
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