Click to go to the Choir Notes for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Dec. 20, 2014.
Christ Church Cathedral Choir Notes
Christmas and the Sunday after Christmas
Click to go immediately to:
1) The Music Programme Homepage
3) The Concert Calendar / L'Oasis Musicale.
Sandro Botticelli, Mystic Nativity, National Gallery, London, 1501
The organ voluntaries for the Christmas Day Choral Eucharist are by Louis-Claude Daquin. Click to hear all 12 of Daquin's Noëls performed by Pierre Bardon at the eighteenth century Isnard organ of the Saint Mary Magdalene Basilica in Saint-Maximin-en-Provence.
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Piero della Francesca, The Nativity, The National Gallery, London, 1470-5
The organ voluntaries for evensong the Sunday after Christmas are from the Four Suites of Noëls by Claude-Benigne Balbastre. Jean-Patrice Brosse has recorded all four suites on the 1736 Christophe Moucherel organ of the Cathédrale d'Albi (Suites I et II) and the 1550 organ of the Cathédrale de Saint-Bertrand de Comminges (Suites III et IV). Listen to all four suites: music-Me.
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King's College Choir
Click to hear the Ceremony of Carols performed by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Sir David Willcocks conducting.
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Martin Schongauer, Nativity (detail), Staatliche Museen, Berlin, c.1480
The Mass setting and Communion motet for 19h00 French Choral Eucharist on Christmas Eve is the work of Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611): O Magnum Mysterium. As are the Communion motets for both Choral Eucharists on the Sunday after Christmas. Click to go to O Magnum Mysterium by a number of different composers.
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Fra Filippo Lippi and Workshop, The Nativity, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., c. 1445
Online performances of Johann Sebastian Bach, Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, with versions conducted by Georg Christoph Biller / Riccardo Chailly / Diego Fasolis / Gardiner (1st recording) / Herreweghe / Phillip Ledger / Karl Münchinger)
Cantata I for the 1st Day of Christmas
Cantata II for the 2nd Day of Christmas
Cantata III for the 3rd Day of Christmas
Cantata IV for New Year's Day
Cantata V for the Sunday after New Year
Cantata VI for the Feast of Epiphany
Video Performances:
Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists in a video performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, to begin their year-long Cantata Pilgrimage. Soprano: Claron McFadden; Alto:Bernarda Fink; Tenor: Christoph Genz; Bass: Dietrich Henschel. [YouTube]
Nicholas Harnoncourt conducts the Concentus Musicus Wien and soloists of the Tolzer Knabenchor, Chorusmaster: Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden; Peter Schreier - Tenor, Robert Holl - Bass.
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Vittore Carpaccio, Flight into Egypt, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1500
Click to go to an online performance of Hector Berlioz, L'Enfance du Christ, about the flight into Egypt, with Nicolai Gedda, Victoria de los Angeles, Ernest Blan, Roger Soyer, the René Duclos Choir, l'Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, André Cluytens conducting.
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Performance by Georges Delvallée on the 1880 Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Cathedral of Saint-Croix, Orléans
Mass of the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord
Mass of the Sunday in the Octave of the Nativity
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Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Nativity, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, 1475
Bach Cantatas for Christmas Day:
Click to go to Johann Sebastian Bach, Christen, ätzet diesen Tag / Christians, engrave this day, Cantata 63, with performances by Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Herreweghe, Koopman, Leonhardt, Leusink, Onofri, Pickett and Richter.
Click to go to Johann Sebastian Bach, Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ / Praised be you, Jesus Christ, Cantata 91, with performances by Gardiner, Leonhardt and Leusink.
Click to go to Johann Sebastian Bach, Unser Mund sei voll Lachens / May our mouth be filled with laughter, Cantata 110, with performances by Gardiner, Harnoncourt and Leusink.
Bach Cantatas for the Sunday after Christmas:
Click to go to Johann Sebastian Bach, Gottlob! nun geht das Jahr zu Ende / Praise God! Now the year comes to an end, Cantata 28, with performances by Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Leusink and Richter.
Click to go to Johann Sebastian Bach, Das neugeborne Kindelin / The new-born little child, Cantata 122, with performances by Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Herreweghe ,Leusink, and Rilling.
Click to go to Johann Sebastian Bach, Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn / Step forward on the way of faith, Cantata152, with performances by Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Jürgens,Kussmaul, Leusink, Rilling and Thomas.
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Click here to go to Heinrich Schütz, History of the Joyful and Merciful Birth of the Son of God and Mary, Jesus Christ, our only Mediator, Redeemer and Saviour (Die Weihnachtshistorien / The Christmas Story), performed by Franz-Josef Selig, Michael Volle, Peter Kooy, Thomas Herberich, Andrea Egeler, et al; Kammerchor Stuttgart, Musica Fiata Köln, Stuttgart Baroque Orchestra; Frieder Bernius conducting.
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Click on artist(s) for a wide selection of Christmas Carols:
Britten: A Ceremony of Carols, etc. by King's College, Cambridge;
Clare College Singers and Orchestra, Cambridge (John Rutter) (The Holly and the Ivy);
Clare College Singers and Orchestra, Cambridge (John Rutter (2007)
King's College, Cambridge (2003);
King's College, Cambridge (2007);
Taverner Consort (Andrew Parrott) (2007);
Trinity College, Cambridge (Richard Marlow);
Windsor Choir of St. George's Chapel.