Bach’s Christmas Oratorio - Rejoice, Exult!
by Dan Solter
Before beginning his career as a medical missionary in Africa, the polymath Albert Schweitzer devoted himself to another kind of organ - he was renowned as the greatest Bach exponent of his day. In his biography of Bach he described a musical language, in which moods were linked to specific musical phrases. For expression of joy unconfined he looked to the great choruses of the Christmas Oratorio, where two or three of the “joy” motives are combined and heard at once.
The choir begins with “Rejoice, Exult”, and continues to do just that throughout the oratorio. The mood is certainly contagious, and in part accounts for the enormous popularity of this piece. Another principal factor is probably the tunefulness of the music, the simple and pleasing melodies which appear everywhere.
Bach assembled the Christmas Oratorio in 1734, and parts and score, for once, have been well preserved. Most of the pieces, except the chorales, are parodies, which means the music is taken from earlier works by Bach. This practice was taken for granted in Bach’s time, but he exercised it in a unique fashion.
There are dozens of cases of Bach utilizing pieces initially written for secular use (birthday pieces for the court, for example) in subsequent religious works. There is not one example going the other way - a piece written initially for religious use is never adapted for secular music. What can this mean? Bach is not too fastidious in making his adaptations - in our oratorio, the music for “hasten most ardently the Bridegroom to love” is taken from “thee will I strangle, you serpent”, and the famous lullaby to the Christ child is taken from the lullaby sung over infant Hercules by “Wollust” - Voluptuousness. Yet these adaptations work so perfectly that it seems likely that Bach had their later use in the Christmas Oratorio in mind from the very beginning. The little prince celebrated as Hercules would have an eleventh birthday only once, but his music, incorporated in our Christmas Oratorio, lives from year to year.
The reason the parodies work is that Bach writes music that finds the heart’s core, that appeals to what one writer calls “the ultimate primal abstract sentiment”. The inspiration a believing Christian finds in contemplating Jesus in the manger has a natural affinity with the experience of every parent: something new has come into the world, and things will never be the same. Bach understands home truth, and makes us feel it with him.
Much of the feeling is communicated subtly through the choice of instruments. The tonal palette is different in each of the six parts of our oratorio. Trumpet and timpani dominate the first and last parts, the fourth is the only one to have horns, while the second part presents a unique sound with its four oboes - two oboe d’amore and two oboe da caccia. The writing for valveless trumpet is amazing, at times triumphant, but sweet when played beside the cradle, in a style unique to Bach and perhaps derived from his distant relative, Lips Bach.
It is worthwhile to look carefully at how Bach introduces us to the orchestra, one of his largest. The opening chorus is for full orchestra, with the three trumpets taking the lead, backed by two oboes. These baroque oboes sound brighter than modern ones do. But in the first accompanied recitative Bach substitutes the oboe d’amore, which has a very different tone. The aria that follows combines the oboe d’amore with a violin, and shortly thereafter the tones of the two different oboes are played off against each other, resulting in a completely new tonal combination. The lead trumpet completely dominates the next aria, and in the chorale that ends the first part the third trumpet continues the militant style while the two other trumpets serenade the Christ child together with the adoring choir. Part Two opens with the famous Pastorale for orchestra, in which flutes and violins play heaven’s music, until the shepherds are heard - and they are playing four oboes to create a sound that may be unique on this planet. The angels join in with them, because in this second part heaven and earth make music together. And so it goes. The flute gets its first solo soon thereafter, while the bass instruments have to wait for their chance at display until the rip-roaring tenor solo late in the oratorio. It will have a completely fresh sound.
One final ingredient in the popularity of this oratorio must be the chorales, the four-part arrangements, simple in texture, in which the choir adores, salutes, meditates and prays. Even in his own time Bach was the acknowledged master of the chorale - the composer of intricate counterpoint lavishing his art on the plainest of forms. These chorales really seem to have been at the center of his emotional life, and those of the Christmas Oratorio, some of the last he wrote, are surely among the finest. Their forms are more varied than in any other work: some with instrumental interludes, or with full orchestral accompaniment, or even split between musical numbers. Much is communicated. The first chorale, greeting the Christ child with solemn, hushed amazement, does not use its traditional tune, but rather the Passion chorale tune, familiar from the St. Matthew Passion, and this same tune is heard at the very end of the oratorio, in a blaze of splendor, capped with trumpet and timpani. Between is a world of mystery and joy…
by Dan Solter
Before beginning his career as a medical missionary in Africa, the polymath Albert Schweitzer devoted himself to another kind of organ - he was renowned as the greatest Bach exponent of his day. In his biography of Bach he described a musical language, in which moods were linked to specific musical phrases. For expression of joy unconfined he looked to the great choruses of the Christmas Oratorio, where two or three of the “joy” motives are combined and heard at once.
The choir begins with “Rejoice, Exult”, and continues to do just that throughout the oratorio. The mood is certainly contagious, and in part accounts for the enormous popularity of this piece. Another principal factor is probably the tunefulness of the music, the simple and pleasing melodies which appear everywhere.
Bach assembled the Christmas Oratorio in 1734, and parts and score, for once, have been well preserved. Most of the pieces, except the chorales, are parodies, which means the music is taken from earlier works by Bach. This practice was taken for granted in Bach’s time, but he exercised it in a unique fashion.
There are dozens of cases of Bach utilizing pieces initially written for secular use (birthday pieces for the court, for example) in subsequent religious works. There is not one example going the other way - a piece written initially for religious use is never adapted for secular music. What can this mean? Bach is not too fastidious in making his adaptations - in our oratorio, the music for “hasten most ardently the Bridegroom to love” is taken from “thee will I strangle, you serpent”, and the famous lullaby to the Christ child is taken from the lullaby sung over infant Hercules by “Wollust” - Voluptuousness. Yet these adaptations work so perfectly that it seems likely that Bach had their later use in the Christmas Oratorio in mind from the very beginning. The little prince celebrated as Hercules would have an eleventh birthday only once, but his music, incorporated in our Christmas Oratorio, lives from year to year.
The reason the parodies work is that Bach writes music that finds the heart’s core, that appeals to what one writer calls “the ultimate primal abstract sentiment”. The inspiration a believing Christian finds in contemplating Jesus in the manger has a natural affinity with the experience of every parent: something new has come into the world, and things will never be the same. Bach understands home truth, and makes us feel it with him.
Much of the feeling is communicated subtly through the choice of instruments. The tonal palette is different in each of the six parts of our oratorio. Trumpet and timpani dominate the first and last parts, the fourth is the only one to have horns, while the second part presents a unique sound with its four oboes - two oboe d’amore and two oboe da caccia. The writing for valveless trumpet is amazing, at times triumphant, but sweet when played beside the cradle, in a style unique to Bach and perhaps derived from his distant relative, Lips Bach.
It is worthwhile to look carefully at how Bach introduces us to the orchestra, one of his largest. The opening chorus is for full orchestra, with the three trumpets taking the lead, backed by two oboes. These baroque oboes sound brighter than modern ones do. But in the first accompanied recitative Bach substitutes the oboe d’amore, which has a very different tone. The aria that follows combines the oboe d’amore with a violin, and shortly thereafter the tones of the two different oboes are played off against each other, resulting in a completely new tonal combination. The lead trumpet completely dominates the next aria, and in the chorale that ends the first part the third trumpet continues the militant style while the two other trumpets serenade the Christ child together with the adoring choir. Part Two opens with the famous Pastorale for orchestra, in which flutes and violins play heaven’s music, until the shepherds are heard - and they are playing four oboes to create a sound that may be unique on this planet. The angels join in with them, because in this second part heaven and earth make music together. And so it goes. The flute gets its first solo soon thereafter, while the bass instruments have to wait for their chance at display until the rip-roaring tenor solo late in the oratorio. It will have a completely fresh sound.
One final ingredient in the popularity of this oratorio must be the chorales, the four-part arrangements, simple in texture, in which the choir adores, salutes, meditates and prays. Even in his own time Bach was the acknowledged master of the chorale - the composer of intricate counterpoint lavishing his art on the plainest of forms. These chorales really seem to have been at the center of his emotional life, and those of the Christmas Oratorio, some of the last he wrote, are surely among the finest. Their forms are more varied than in any other work: some with instrumental interludes, or with full orchestral accompaniment, or even split between musical numbers. Much is communicated. The first chorale, greeting the Christ child with solemn, hushed amazement, does not use its traditional tune, but rather the Passion chorale tune, familiar from the St. Matthew Passion, and this same tune is heard at the very end of the oratorio, in a blaze of splendor, capped with trumpet and timpani. Between is a world of mystery and joy…