Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin spielt DAS Weihnachtsoratorium

Bach's Christmas parody

Jauchzet, frohlocket - probably no one in the Central European cultural area can escape the powerful festivity that radiates so incomparably from the magnificent opening of Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio. After Bach's death, the first revival of the entire Christmas Oratorio, the original manuscript of which came into the possession of the Berlin Royal Court Library, now the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz, in the 19th century, was performed by the Berlin Singakademie in 1857.
However, Bach only composed the Shepherds' Sinfonia, the recitatives, a single aria and a few chorale movements originally for the Christmas Oratorio. He recycled all the other music, the expressive choruses, the contemplative arias and several chorales, from earlier works using the so-called "parody method". Bach thought economically and still maintained the full artistic standard, indeed he constantly increased it. He could certainly have composed a cantata for every Christmas Day in 1734, as he had done in previous years - and that was that. Nobody had asked him to compose a larger, coherent, representative work (for the then three Christmas holidays on December 25, 26 and 27, for New Year's Day, the Sunday after New Year's Day and Epiphany on January 6). However, he took up the special personal challenge (as he had already done in the case of the two Passions, 1724, 1727) and presented a large-scale, cyclical work. He simply used the best he had ever composed for vocal and instrumental parts.