Various Artists - Bach: Christmas Oratorio

At the time Bach created this masterpiece, the order of church services in Leipzig only provided limited space for music, and thus more extensive works had to be spread over several successive services. That is why the Christmas Oratorio comprises a cycle of six complete cantatas for the first three days of Christmas, New Years, the Sunday following New Years and Epiphany respectively. The six parts of the Christmas Oratorio differ from the "regular" feast-day cantatas in that the complete Gospel text is used. A special characteristic is the fact that Bach had re-used elements from his earlier works when writing the music to almost all the arias and choruses, a practice we now recognize as being common to many composers from this era. After Bach's death, the Christmas Oratorio was initially forgotten. Even though it has been handed down in the composer's own manuscript and in its original choral form, it was only found in 1857, after the rediscovery of the great passions by the Berlin Vocal Academy for Performing Practice.