In the period from the first Sunday of
Advent
until Epiphany - that is, the time of the Christmas celebrations - Christian tradition evokes memories of a series of magical and mystical episodes.
Preparations begin long before Advent, however, since it is at the directly opposite time of the year, in midsummer, that we recall the news of Jesus's birth, the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary's Visitation to Elizabeth and Mary's prayer, the Magnificat. As well as the night of the birth (Bach: Brich an, o schönes Morgenlicht), the visit of the Three Kings (Bach: Ich steh' an deiner Krippen hier) and the evocation of the mystical miracle (Kevin A. Memley: O Magnum Mysterium), this concert of the MR Music Groups also looks at this earlier event which, though more distant in time, is the most closely connected to Christmas.
The concert features Arvo Pärt‘s Magnificat Antiphons alongside one of the most popular (and of course most wonderful) chorale movements by
Johann Sebastian Bach
, Jesus bleibet meine Freude (Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring). The "chorus of angels", meanwhile, is represented by two deeply moving works for women's chorus: the motets which a young Mendelssohn composed in Rome (at Christmas time) for the nuns of Trinità dei Monti, and another youthful set of choruses by the 22-year-old Rachmaninoff. By way of a summary, the concert ends with the first of the three parts of Franz Liszt's large-scale Christus oratorio. Many regard the work as the most glorious sacred composition of the 19th century. When the Christmas Oratorio was first performed in Vienna, the choir and orchestra were conducted by Anton Rubinstein, with Anton Bruckner at the organ.
