Christmas Oratorio Review

Brighton Early Music Festival ('BREMF') 2017 Bach's Christmas Oratorio, St Martin's Lewes Road, Sunday 12th November A fitting end to this year's early music festival. The Christmas Oratorio is a truly joyful group of six cantatas. Whilst conceived as a single entity, they would have been played at different services over the twelve days of Christmas.

The BREMF singers and players go from strength to strength, with a perfect balance between the two forces, choir and orchestra both creating a sound that was delightfully clean and precise yet full of life. St Martin's was an ideal acoustic with sufficient resonance to add warmth and grandeur. (It is often when the music stops that you feel its beauty most intensely, and with a sudden sense of loss, in that micro-second of reverberation.)

John Hancorn, the conductor, a veteran of BREMF, found (as ever) exactly the right tempi to suit the acoustic and draw out the sonority and vitality of this music. The introductory trumpets and timpani, and the lilting sinfonia of the second cantata may be the most well known parts of this Oratorio, but there are also some exquisitely beautiful arias, sung here with style and a calm confidence by the four young soloists. Interspersed throughout are the hymn-like chorales, several of which the audience were invited to join in.

A faultless and uplifting performance!

Terry Walker Five stars * * * * *