Concert Details
| Title: | Bach's Christmas Oratorio |
| Performed by: | Mayfield Festival Choir |
| Time: | Sunday, 19 November 2023, at 7:30pm |
| Place: | St Dunstan’s Church, Mayfield |
| Description: | Bach's Christmas Oratorio, performed by Mayfield Festival Choir with Mayfield Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Jeremy Summerly. Like much of Bach’s music, the Christmas Oratorio lay unperformed for a long time after the composer’s death. Amazingly enough, the Christmas Oratorio wasn’t sung between its earliest performances and 1857 – a gap of 122 years. And yet the Christmas Oratorio is unmatched in Bach’s oeuvre for joie de vivre and sheer well-being. It is, in short, good fun – albeit within the boundaries of what constituted ‘fun’ within 18th-century Lutheran church music. Trumpets, drums, flutes, different-shaped oboes, and all of the usual stringed hardware are involved in telling the Nativity Story from Christmas Day to Epiphany. Four young singing prodigies from London’s Royal College of Music join forces with Mayfield Baroque and Mayfield Festival Choir to bring this set of Christmastide cantatas off the page and into the supportive acoustics of St Dunstan’s Church. It’s not always the case that the listener can perceive Bach as actively enjoying composition; to a large extent, writing music for his employers (whether ecclesiastical or aristocratic) was simply what Bach did; he had to make a living, after all. But the Christmas Oratorio shows Bach letting his wig down and putting his composition where his faith was. Maybe you should think of a ticket to this concert as an early Christmas present to yourself, your friends, and your family. After all, it was Germany that convincingly showed Britain how to celebrate Christmas colourfully. Frohe Wieihnachten! Would you like to sing with us? We would love to hear from anyone who has experience of choral music and is keen to be part of a friendly but ambitious choir. Contact the membership secretary through the website http://www.mayfieldfestivalchoir.org/join-the-choir |
| Tickets: | Tickets cost £25 (centre), £10 (sides) (half price for under 25s), available: a/ online at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/mayfieldfestivalchoir b/ in person from Sew Inspired, Mayfield and Lambert & Foster, Wadhurst; c/ by phone from 0333 666 3366 (This is a general booking line operated for us by TicketSource. Please be sure to say that you are booking tickets for Mayfield Festival Choir – Bach's Christmas Oratorio. A postage fee of £1.80 will be applied to each order.) |
| Contact: | Jane Bolger |
