Christmas Oratorio

The Christmas Oratorio, , is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season. It is in six parts, each part a cantata intended for performance in a church service on a feast day of the Christmas period. It was written for the Christmas season of 1734 and incorporates music from earlier compositions, including three secular cantatas written during 1733 and 1734 and a largely lost church cantata, BWV 248a. The date is confirmed in Bach's autograph manuscript. The next complete public performance was not until 17 December 1857 by the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin under Eduard Grell. The Christmas Oratorio is a particularly sophisticated example of parody music. The author of the text is unknown, although a likely collaborator was Christian Friedrich Henrici.
The work belongs to a group of three oratorios written in 1734 and 1735 for major feasts, the other two works being the Ascension Oratorio and the Easter Oratorio. All three of these oratorios to some degree parody earlier compositions. The Christmas Oratorio is by far the longest and most complex work of the three.
The first part describes the birth of Jesus; the second the annunciation to the shepherds; the third the adoration of the shepherds; the fourth the circumcision and naming of Jesus; the fifth the journey of the Magi; and the sixth the adoration of the Magi.
The running time for the entire oratorio is around three hours. In concert performance, it is often presented split into two parts.

History

In the liturgical calendar of the German reformation era in Saxony, the Christmas season started on 25 December and ended on 6 January. It was preceded by Advent, and followed by the period of the Sundays after Epiphany. It included at least three feast days that called for festive music during religious services: apart from Christmas and Epiphany the period also included New Year's Day, in Bach's time still often referred to as the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ. Also 26 and 27 December were commonly considered feast days, with festive music in church. If a Sunday fell between 27 December and 1 January, also on this first Sunday after Christmas a church service with music was held, and similar for a Sunday between 1 and 6 January.

1714–1729

Before Bach composed his Christmas Oratorio for the 1734–35 Christmas season in Leipzig, he had already composed Christmas cantatas and other church music for all seven occasions of the Christmas season:

Before his Leipzig period he composed, as part of his Weimar cantata cycle:
* Christmas, : Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63.
* First Sunday after Christmas, : Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn, BWV 152.
For the 1723–24 Christmas season, during his first year as musical director of Leipzig's principal churches:
* Christmas Day: repeat performance of BWV 63, which thus became part of his first cantata cycle, and, as part of the Latin Church music he composed for Leipzig, his Magnificat, BWV 243a and Sanctus in D major, BWV 238.
* Second Day of Christmas: Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, BWV 40.
* Third Day of Christmas: Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget, BWV 64.
* New Year's Day: Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 190.
* Second Sunday after Christmas : Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind, BWV 153.
* Epiphany: Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65.
For the 1724–25 Christmas season, as part of his chorale cantata cycle :
* Christmas Day: Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, BWV 91, and Sanctus for six vocal parts, BWV 232/III.
* Second Day of Christmas: Christum wir sollen loben schon, BWV 121.
* Third Day of Christmas: Ich freue mich in dir, BWV 133.
* First Sunday after Christmas : Das neugeborne Kindelein, BWV 122.
* New Year's Day: Jesu, nun sei gepreiset, BWV 41.
* Epiphany: Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen, BWV 123.
Cantatas of Bach's third cantata cycle, for the Christmas seasons of 1725–26 and 1726–27:
* Christmas Day : Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110.
* Second Day of Christmas : Selig ist der Mann, BWV 57.
* Third Day of Christmas : Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt, BWV 151.
* First Sunday after Christmas : Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu Ende, BWV 28.
* New Year's Day : Herr Gott, dich loben wir, BWV 16.
* Second Sunday after Christmas : Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid, BWV 58.

Four of these third cycle cantatas for the Christmas season, BWV 110, 57, 151 and 16, were on a text from Georg Christian Lehms's Gottgefälliges Kirchen-Opffer cantata libretto cycle, which had been published in 1711. In the second half of the 1720s Bach often collaborated with Picander as a librettist for his cantatas. The Shepherd Cantata, BWV 249a, first performed on 23 February 1725, one of Bach's secular cantatas, is an early example of such cantata. Bach reused the music of this cantata in the 1725 first version of his Easter Oratorio. Ihr Häuser des Himmels, ihr scheinenden Lichter, BWV 193a, composed in 1727, is another secular cantata on a text by Picander which was, shortly after its first performance, reworked into a sacred cantata. In 1728–29 Picander published a cantata libretto cycle, leading to at least two further Christmas season cantatas by Bach:

Christmas Day 1728, or possibly 1729: Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe, BWV 197a.
New Year's Day 1729: Gott, wie dein Name, so ist auch dein Ruhm, BWV 171, with music in part adapted from the secular cantata, likewise on a text by Picander, Zerreißet, zersprenget, zertrümmert die Gruft, BWV 205.

A Christmas oratorio presented as a cycle of six cantatas, to be performed on several days during the Christmas period, was not uncommon in Bach's day: Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, whose church music was not unknown to Bach and Leipzig churchgoers, had composed such Christmas oratorios in 1719 and 1728.

1730s

Models from earlier compositions

In the early 1730s, Bach composed a number of secular cantatas, including:

So kämpfet nur, ihr muntern Töne, BWV 1160, on a libretto by Picander, first performed on .
Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen, BWV 213, on a libretto by Picander, performed on.
Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten!, BWV 214, performed on.
Preise dein Glücke, gesegnetes Sachsen, BWV 215, performed on.

Movements from the BWV 213, 214 and 215 cantatas form the basis of several movements of the Christmas Oratorio. In addition to these sources, the sixth cantata is based on a largely lost church cantata, BWV 248a, of which at least the opening chorus is based on the lost secular cantata BWV 1160. The trio aria in Part V "Ach, wenn wird die Zeit erscheinen?" is believed to be from a similarly lost source, and the chorus from the same section "Wo ist der neugeborne König" is from the 1731 St Mark Passion, BWV 247.

Cantata	Movement	Type	BWV 248	Movement
BWV 213/1	Lasst uns sorgen, lasst uns wachen	Chorus	36	Fallt mit Danken, fallt mit Loben
BWV 213/3	Schlafe, mein Liebster, und pflege der Ruh	Aria	19	Schlafe, mein Liebster, genieße der Ruh
BWV 213/5	Treues Echo dieser Orten	Aria	39	Flößt, mein Heiland, flößt dein Namen
BWV 213/7	Auf meinen Flügeln sollst du schweben	Aria	41	Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben
BWV 213/9	Ich will dich nicht hören	Aria	4	Bereite, dich, Zion
BWV 213/11	Ich bin deine, du bist meine	Duet	29	Herr, dein Mitleid, dein Erbarmen
BWV 214/1	Tönet, ihr Pauken! Erschallet, Trompeten	Chorus	1	Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage
BWV 214/5	Fromme Musen! meine Glieder	Aria	15	Frohe Hirten, eilt, ach eilet
BWV 214/7	Kron und Preis gekrönter Damen	Aria	8	Großer Herr, o starker König
BWV 214/9	Blühet, ihr Linden in Sachsen, wie Zedern	Chorus	24	Herrscher des Himmels, erhöre das Lallen
BWV 215/7	Durch die von Eifer entflammten Waffen	Aria	47	Erleucht auch meine finstre Sinnen
BWV 247/43	Pfui dich, wie fein zerbrichst du den Tempel	Chorus	45	Wo ist der neugeborne König der Juden
BWV 248a/1	—	Chorus	54	Herr, wenn die stolzen Feinde schnauben
BWV 248a/2	—	Recitative	56	Du Falscher, suche nur den Herrn zu fällen
BWV 248a/3	—	Aria	57	Nur ein Wink von seinen Händen
BWV 248a/4	—	Recitative	61	So geht! Genug, mein Schatz geht nicht von hier
BWV 248a/5	—	Aria	62	Nun mögt ihr stolzen Feinde schrecken
BWV 248a/6	—	Recitative	63	Was will der Höllen Schrecken nun
BWV 248a/7	—	Chorus	64	Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen
?	—	Trio	51	Ach! wann wird die Zeit erscheinen?

Chorales

Like for most of his German-language church music, Bach used Lutheran hymns, and their Lutheran chorale tunes, in his Christmas Oratorio. The first chorale tune appears in the 5th movement of Part I: it is the tune known as Herzlich tut mich verlangen, that is, the same hymn tune which Bach used in his St Matthew Passion for setting several stanzas of Paul Gerhardt's "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden". The same melody reappears in the last movement of the oratorio. In the oratorio there is, however, no association with the pain and suffering evoked in the Passion.
Martin Luther's 1539 "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her" melody appears in three chorales: twice on a text by Paul Gerhardt in Part II of the oratorio, and the first time, in the closing chorale of Part I, with the 13th stanza of Luther's hymn as text. A well-known English version of that stanza is "Oh, my dear heart, young Jesus sweet", the first stanza of "Balulalow", as, for instance, sung in 2009 by English musician Sting:
The Christmas Oratorio is exceptional in that it contains a few hymn settings, or versions of hymn tunes, for which there is no known earlier source than Bach's composition:

The chorale melody used in No. 33 of the oratorio appears to be based on Georg Ebeling's 1666 "Warum sollt ich mich denn grämen" hymn tune. The Zahn number of Ebeling's original is 6456a. Bach's Christmas Oratorio version of the tune is Zahn 6462, first printed in 1769 as No. 143 in the second volume of Bach's four-part chorales published by Birnstiel.
No. 38 and 40 set the first stanza of Johann Rist's "Jesu, du mein liebstes Leben" hymn text: the setting is Bach's – it is not based on any known pre-existing hymn tune.
The tune used for Johann Rist's "Hilf, Herr Jesu, lass gelingen" hymn text in No. 42 of the oratorio appears to be an original composition by Bach. It is mentioned as such in the last volume of Johannes Zahn's, as first of four late additions to his catalogue of German Evangelical hymn tunes.

There are very few known hymn tunes by Bach : apart from what can be found in the Christmas Oratorio, there appears to be one, partly inspired by a pre-existing melody, in the motet Komm, Jesu, komm, BWV 229, and at least one entirely by Bach, "Vergiss mein nicht, vergiss mein nicht", BWV 505, in Schemellis Gesangbuch.