BACH’S Christmas Oratorio is set to provide a joyful start to the festive season at Warwick’s St Mary’s Church.
Choir and baroque orchestra Armonico Consort will be playing on instruments that would have been familiar to its first 18th century audiences, when they perform on December 6.
The Christmas Oratorio is a collection of six cantatas – from which Armonico Consort will play four parts – each telling a different part of the Christmas story, from the birth of Jesus to the arrival of the Wise Men.
Written in 1734-5, Bach combines some of his most virtuosic trumpet writing with flamboyant orchestral composition and intensely lyrical melody. He even finds room for the famous chorale which later appeared in his Matthew Passion.
Armonico Consort artistic director Christopher Monks describes the Christmas Oratorio as “Bach at his finest, most exuberant and most excitable, full of exquisite and beautiful melodies”.
Visit www.armonico.org.uk for tickets and further details.
