Koor en Orkest Collegium Vocale Gent - Philippe Herreweghe

When composing B or rather compiling, considering his abundant >reuse' of earlier work B his 'Christmas Oratorio', Bach did not draw inspiration so much from the limited but valuable tradition of 'Christmas stories', but from his own Passions. We encounter in the text the same three layers of content both in the Passions and in the 'Christmas Oratorio': Bible passages, chorales and newly-written poetry, and the consequent variety of musical forms. Unlike the often extremely dramatic Passions, where several characters face each other as if in a religious opera, the 'Christmas Oratorio', entirely in keeping with the Christmas story in the Bible, is much more contemplative. The emphasis is not so much on telling the story with all its dramatic developments as on a reflection on the Christmas events that everyone knows. The Collegium Vocale is performing four of the six cantatas that make up the oratorio. It is quite legitimate to make a selection like this, since Bach saw the separate cantatas as completely independent compositions and only later incorporated them into a larger whole.