The tenderly expressive and ingenuous character of German Protestant Christmas music of the baroque seldom fails to exert its magic on me. The mid-to-late seventeenth century was a particularly fruitful period for colourful treatment of the great Lutheran Christmas hymns, demonstrated by Schelle, Praetorius, Zachow and Buxtehude, among many others. But though the greatest achievements in this tradition greatly diminished after Bach, there were, as almost always, exceptions. One of them is Telemann’s intimate and characteristically imaginative oratorio Die Hirten an der Krippe zu Bethlehem (“The Shepherds at the Crib in Bethlehem”). It belongs to the period of the composer’s last creative outburst which began in the mid-1750s and lasted for almost exactly a decade.
The text is by the Berlin poet, Ramler, whose poetry Telemann set on several occasions during his Indian summer; Ramler had in fact written it in 1757 for the Berlin composer, Friedrich Agricola, who may then have sent the text or his setting of it to Telemann with whom he was regularly in touch. Telemann’s own setting dates from 1759 and contains additional chorales, making it suitable for church performance. Ramler was an erudite scholar and his taste for classical forms sometimes makes his work stiff and austere. Yet nothing could be further removed from the disciplined and precise nature of classical poetry than his intimate account and celebration of Christ’s birth. Certainly, it touched a chord in Telemann who responded with music of expressive warmth and irresistible charm. This is not at all the world of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, indeed it is only approximately a sixth of the length of Bach’s masterpiece. Telemann’s concept is one rather of noble simplicity, a sought-after goal in post-Bach church music which, in this respect, at least, provided a perfect foil to Ramler’s text.
Every reader will recognize the melody of the opening number as belonging to the Latin carol In dulci jubilo. Telemann’s harmonization of the sixteenth-century»tune, straightforward but with an occasional harmonic piquancy, sets the scene concisely and intimately. Thereafter, follows one delight after another. Of outstanding beauty are the “Shepherd’s Song” and the bass aria, “Hirten aus den goldnen Zeiten”. In the first of these Telemann skilfully and affectingly alternates the song, an instrumental one with a prominent part for bassoon, with passages of highly imaginative accompagnato for alto and tenor. Trumpets, timpani and flutes are introduced to the bass aria, a robust piece in a style and idiom typical of the composer’s late manner.
I need hardly say more of a release that is giving me so much pleasure other than to commend its pervasive charm and to mention the remaining two items on a well-filled disc. These are both Christmas cantatas of 1761 and 1762, respectively. Both contain music of enormous appeal though they are, perhaps, marginally less well sustained than the oratorio. Performances are excellent, with outstanding singing by Klaus Mertens and Mechthild Georg. Both choir and orchestra rise to the occasion under the sensitive and stylish direction of Ludger Remy. As I have said in earlier reviews, CPO are providing a valuable service to scholars and general music-lovers alike in their exploration of Telemann’s vocal and choral music. Three hitherto unrecorded pieces, one of them a little jewel, in performances of such vitality make this comfortably the strongest issue to date. Fervently recommended.'