Dunedin Consort - J.S. Bach: Christmas Oratorio - Audiophile Audition

John Butt has rendered a sparkling and energetic performance of this work, originally a series of Christmas season cantatas for the first three festal days, the feast of the Circumcision, Sunday after New Year, and Epiphany, in gloriously flashy surround sound. In accordance with what he tells us in the booklet notes, two "casts" of singers are used to cover three cantatas apiece, with a few "ripienists" added for Cantatas 1, 3, and 6 (where trumpets are used) in order to beef up the sound, again according to what he believes Bach did. This is fine, though I am not sure what Bach did has any musical meaning for us today, as we are not hearing this music in the same way, and certainly not in the same place and series of days.

Yet the singers are all outstanding, presenting the music with a ravishing sense of joy and spontaneity that some other recordings can only envy. The Dunedin Consort has long proven itself, and pulls out all of the stops. Because of the trimmed-down forces this could not be my only recording, but for sheer vitality and gorgeous sonic allure it's very difficult to beat.