Bach, J S: Cantata BWV63 'Christen, aetzet diesen Tag'

This disc is a far cry from the typical fare we’ve come to expect on the shelves around the Christmas season. The inclusion of Bach’s sublime Cantata 63 and Mendelssohn’s Vom Himmel hoch give the disc a year round appeal.

Vaughan Williams’ joyful The First Nowell is a veritable feast of well loved carols and the London Philharmonic Choir together with soloists Lisa Milne and Christopher Maltman exude Christmas cheer.

Vaughan Williams himself said ‘I think that every Christmas play ought to begin with God rest you Merry and end with The First Nowell.’

Recording locations: Recorded live in Weimar/ Leipzig/ Hamburg, December 1999/ January 2000.

SDG174 is the much awaited last volume of the Bach Cantatas Pilgrimage, one of the most talked about musical events of the last decade.

This is an anthology of the Christmas period, combining cantatas for Christmas Day and the Epiphany.

It features ten acclaimed soloists, including Magdalena Kožená, Bernarda Fink, Michael Chance, James Gilchrist and Christopher Genz.

The album opens with Christen, ätzet diesen Tag (“Christians, engrave this Day”), which was performed on Christmas Day 1999 to launch the year-long pilgrimage. This is one of Bach’s best known cantatas. The accompagnato recit was sung by Bernarda Fink to great acclaim.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the song of the angels at the birth of baby Jesus, is best known as the Gloria in the B Minor Mass.

Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen (“All they from Sheba shall come”) describes the procession of the three magi. Bach conveys the majesty of the scene by using high horns, and the recorders and oboes da caccia create an Eastern-like atmosphere.

The cantatas on this album display a great variety of dramatic expression. Both Mein Liebster Jesus ist verloren (“My dearest Jesus is lost”) and Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (”Beloved Jesus, my Desire“) tell the same story, but in a different style, expressing different emotions.

This album was recorded at Weimar’s Herderkirche, Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche and Hamburg’s Hauptikirche St Jakobi.

SDG174 is packaged with a separate index sheet of the Cantata series.

“This ongoing recording project ranks as one of the musical events of the decade.” The Observer

“One of the most ambitious musical projects of all time” Gramophone

All three works on this disc are taken from Bach's Christmas services for 1723, as they would have been performed in his two Leipzig churches, St. Nicholas' and St. Thomas'. Magnificat edited by Clifford Bartlett and published by King's Music.

Christmas in Leipzig was always a busy time for Johann Sebastian Bach. Each year between December 25 and January 6, a period of just 13 days, no less than six cantatas were required, as well as other concerted music. Bach's first Christmas in Leipzig as the kantor of the Thomaskirche, 1723-24, was preceded by an extraordinary period of creativity. At this time he composed or revised for the 13-day period from Christmas Day to Epiphany the first version of the Magnificat (BWV 243a) and six cantatas.