Bach Christmas Oratorio: Parts 4, 5 and 6 by Bach, J. S., N 15 dets 2022, Alates (2022/2022), Dirigent John Eliot Gardiner, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, United Kingdom

All the splendour and majesty of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio – performed over two nights by the Monteverdi Choir and John Eliot Gardiner. Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage – Celebrate, rejoice, rise up and praise these days! Johann Sebastian Bach saw himself merely as a craftsman serving God. But when the six cantatas he wrote for the Christmas season are combined into his monumental Christmas Oratorio, the result is something so joyous, so strong and so richly inspired that conventional belief becomes unnecessary. “The range of his art, his imagination, and his creative response to different stimuli, is apparently endless” says John Eliot Gardiner, and over two evenings with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists he shares the fruits of a lifetime’s immersion in music that can refresh any human spirit.