Bach Weihnachtsoratorium – BR Klassik Live Recording

BR Klassik has released this set of the Weihnachtsoratorium drawn from two live performances, and right away there’s a practical irritation worth naming: no sung texts are included. For a work whose every aria and chorale carries theological weight — where the specific words Bach chose to set matter enormously — this is a genuine deprivation, not a minor oversight.

The third and fourth discs are something else entirely. Wieland Schmid, a Bach scholar, has prepared an extended spoken introduction with musical examples, narrated by Christian Brückner. All of it — every word — is in German, as are the booklet notes. No English translations anywhere. A non-German speaker simply cannot engage with this material, which rather defeats the purpose of including it in an international release.

Some context, quickly. Bach first performed the work across the Christmas season of 1734–35 in Leipzig, spreading its six parts across the major feast days from Christmas through Epiphany. It’s among his most sustained acts of self-borrowing — substantial chunks of earlier secular cantatas transformed, with startling felicity, into devotional music. The texts were almost certainly assembled by Picander, the pen name of Christian Friedrich Henrici, working alongside Bach himself.

Peter Dijkstra, a maestro who has built a close relationship with the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, directs here with the Akademie für Alte Musik. He has assembled four soloists who complement each other well — different in timbre and weight, balanced in the way the work demands.

Rachel Harnisch, the Swiss soprano, is heard to particular advantage in the ravishing “echo” aria from Part 4, “Flößt, mein Heiland, flößt dein Namen,” where soprano Sonja Philippin answers her from a distance, the two voices threading around solo oboe with an intimacy that can sound almost uncanny in a live hall. Harnisch returns in Part 6 for “Nur ein Wink von seinen Händen,” accompanied by oboe d’amore — her voice bright and focused, her manner conveying exactly the kind of sacred restraint this music requires without ever turning cold.

Anke Vondung brings a mezzo of real creamy warmth. Her “Bereite dich, Zion, mit zärtlichen Trieben” from Part 1 is shapely and forward in projection. The lullaby from Part 2 — “Schlafe, mein Liebster, geniesse der Ruh” — she sings over a rocking flute line with a directness that avoids sentimentality, which is harder than it sounds. The Part 3 aria “Schließe, mein Herze, dies selige Wunder,” with its lovely violin obbligato, shows her ability to sustain a long melodic line without losing contact with the text.

Maximilian Schmitt’s tenor is silvery, almost boyish — right for Bach, where a certain freshness of tone carries its own kind of piety. His flute-accompanied “Frohe Hirten, eilt, ach eilet” from Part 2 has real energy, and the Part 6 aria “Nun mögt ihr stolzen Feinde strecken” with oboe d’amore shows him equally at home in more declamatory writing.

Bass-baritone Christian Immler — a former member of the Tölzer Knabenchor, which tells you something about his musical formation — opens Part 1 with “Großer Herr und starker König,” the aria that deploys trumpet, flute, and strings in one of Bach’s most grandly ceremonial moments. He commands it. His Part 4 aria with oboe d’amore is more inward, and he handles the shift in character with ease.

The Part 3 duet “Herr, dein Mitleid, dein Erbarmen” — Harnisch and Immler over oboe d’amore — is one of the set’s genuine highlights, the two voices intertwining with a warmth that feels lived-in rather than merely polished. And the Part 5 trio “Ach! wann wird die Zeit erscheinen?” with solo violin completes a picture of an ensemble that genuinely listens to itself.

This is a solid, often moving account of one of the monuments of Western sacred music. The packaging failures are real and shouldn’t be minimized — they matter. But the music-making itself earns your attention.