Bach: Weihnachtsoratorium / Christmas Oratorio
Label: Rondeau Productions Catalog: ROP403435 Format: CD Ingeborg Danz, soprano; Christoph Genz, tenor (arias); Martin Petzold, tenor (rezitativ); Panajotis Iconomou, bass; Paul Bernewitz, Friedrich Praetorius, boy soprano; Thomanerchor Leipzig (St Thomas's Boys Choir); Gewandhausorchester; Georg Christoph Biller, directionJohann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Weihnachtsoratorium BWV 248 (Christmas Oratorio) Some of the best boys choirs have performed Bach's Christmas oratorio in splendid fashion over the past decades, apart from St Thomas's Boys Choir itself also the excellent Tölzer Boys Choir with a consort of historical instruments. In the present recording with St Thomas's Boys Choir under the baton of the present cantor at St Thomas, Georg Christoph Biller, the listener will hear no foregrounded, unfamiliar historical sounds, especially not in a didactically over-emphasized manner, but will nonetheless take note of a historically informed performance. As intended by Bach, the words from the Bible and the sermon texts of the arias are the work's focus, underlined and elucidated by the rhetorical power of the musical composition. In practice, this means that the singers and, to the same degree, the choir are the musical, the sounding core, not the instruments. Price: $42.98 |