Classical review: Bach Musica's Christmas Oratorio

Mezzo-soprano Christie Cook.

At this time of the year, to sign off Bach Musica NZ's concert season, music director Rita Paczian frequently opts for Bach's Christmas Oratorio, instead of the traditional Messiah; on Sunday, a loyal audience was treated to Parts 4-6 of the work.

Inevitably, one missed the tremendous trumpet-fired splendour that, in previous years, has launched the first of the half-dozen cantatas that make up the oratorio.

Today's opening chorus, "Fallt mit Danken" was altogether less dramatic, despite its brass shadings. One waited until Emma Roxburgh's charming aria, with interjections of "nein" and "ja" echoing back from a soprano in the chorus, for really memorable music.

The following cantata, written for the Sunday after New Year, made more impact from the start, its opening chorus bustling with the energy that Paczian can inspire in her musical charges.

The recitatives interspersed in "Wo ist der neugeborne Konig der Juden" were confidently handled by Christie Cook, with the whole being incisively shaped by the conductor's authority.

Perhaps the highlight of the evening came in this particular cantata with David Griffiths' bass aria; although the singing was a tad one-dimensional, there were joys to be had from the crisp instrumental trio of Alison Dunlop on oboe d'amore, Philip Sumner on bassoon and Paczian adding fluent harpsichord continuo.

After interval, the final cantata, with its additional trumpet trio and timpani, provided a rouser of an opening chorus, suffused with glorious oboe colouring.

Dunlop's solo work in "Nur ein Wink von seinen Handen" compensated for a slight sense of upper register strain in Roxburgh's otherwise nimble soprano lines. Throughout this aria, lilting minuet rhythms reminded one that Bach borrowed so much of this oratorio's music from his own earlier secular pieces.

Henry Choo, as The Evangelist, carried much of the narrative through his well-disciplined recitatives, but the Australian tenor's final aria, "Nun mogt ihr stolzen Feinde schrecken," rendered with only occasional references to the printed score, lacked sufficient nuancing.

A sense of seasonal celebration was assured in the blaze of Bach's final chorus, with three trumpets in brilliant counterpoint against the choristers' exultant chorale.