Bach Christmas Oratorio

Written towards the end of J. S. Bach’s career, around 1734 and 1735, J. S. Bach’s popular Christmas work is one of the choral masterpieces of the Baroque era. The Christmas Oratorio was composed in six parts, each of them being intended for performance on one of the major feast days of the Christmas period. Bach cleverly integrated music he had already composed, adapting it for a new purpose. The majority of the choruses and arias are from earlier secular works and each section combines choruses, chorales and, from the soloists, recitatives, ariosos and arias.