Johann Sebastian Bach: |Christmas Oratorio BWV 248

It is more than special to hear Bach’s Christmas Oratorio performed in its historical home: 275 years after the work’s debut performance in 1734/35, the Thomanerchor Leipzig (St Thomas’s Boys Choir Leipzig) performs all six cantatas under the baton of the current cantor at St Thomas, Georg Christoph Biller. The music and performance are of outstanding quality: the choir’s own Paul Bernewitz and Friedrich Praetorius sing alongside the exquisite line-up of soloists which includes Ingeborg Danz, Martin Petzold, Christoph Genz and Panajotis Iconomou. Biller, the sixteenth cantor at St Thomas after Johann Sebastian Bach, is in the fortunate situation to have choristers from his own choir perform the work’s challenging soprano arias. The Thomanerchor Leipzig (St Thomas’s Boys Choir Leipzig) guarantees an authenticity for this music which can achieve its full effect only in this very setting: Bach, his music and its performance are deeply rooted in the history of St Thomas Leipzig.