The lesser-known Christmas masterpiece
Experience the joy and warmth of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in London & Norwich this December
Seize this rare opportunity to experience such a high calibre performance of Bach’s Christmas masterpiece this festive period!
Largely for reasons of cost – the orchestra is bigger, and rehearsals have to be more extensive – Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is performed much less in Britain than Handel’s Messiah, and certainly much less than in Bach’s Germany, where it’s the go-to musical treat for the season. But Christmas Oratorio is no less a joyful seasonal masterpiece. There are festive trumpets and drums, joyful choruses, angels, lullabies for baby Jesus and evocations of shepherds abiding in the fields. The solo arias and duets are as exquisite as any Bach wrote in his Passions.
Conductor Stephen Layton is one of the world’s most celebrated interpreters of choral music, and the singers assembled for his 12-voice consort, Polyphony Soloists, will make Bach’s choral and solo writing speak to us with joy and depth. They include Rowan Pierce, who starred in Handel’s Alcina at Glyndebourne this summer and who heads to the Royal Opera House as Papagena in Mozart’s The Magic Flute in the new year, and David Stout, currently performing in Welsh National Opera’s production of Janáček’s Makropulos Affair.
- Mon 12 Dec, 7.30pm | Barbican Hall, London
- Tue 13 Dec, 7pm | St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich
