Coming Soon, John Butt and the Dunedin Consort perform Bach's Christmas Oratorio

Mention the words "historically-informed Bach" to most people and they'll probably quickly think of John Butt and his Dunedin Consort, the Edinburgh-based ensemble who have made a name for themselves as performers of top-quality small-forces baroque music. With recordings of the Mass in B minor, the St John and St Matthew Passions and the Magnificat already released (to considerable acclaim), it was only going to be a matter of time before they turned their attention to the Christmas Oratorio.

The same single-voice approach dominates - with justification from Bach's own time, when it's thought that he would have drawn on a pool of eight or ten singers for the marathon task of singing all six cantatas between Christmas and Epiphany. Butt speculates that Bach might have lightened the load by using two groups of four, one for the odd-numbered cantatas and one for the even - surely a plausible idea from the point of view of simple pragmatism - and takes this as his starting-point.

The album is due out on 21st October; you can pre-order it here.

The Dunedin Consort's choral Bach albums so far...