Weihnachtsoratorium [Christmas Oratorio], BWV 248 Cantata I
1. Chorus: Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf, preiset die Tage
2. Recitative (tenor): Es begab sich aber zu der Zeit
3. Recitative (alto): Nun wird mein liebster Bräutigam
4. Aria (alto): Bereite dich, Zion
5. Chorale: Wie soll ich dich empfangen
6. Recitative (tenor): Und sie gebar ihren ersten Sohn
7. Chorale (chorus—soprano only) with recitative (bass): Er ist auf Erden kommen arm
8. Aria (bass): Großer Herr, o starker König
9. Chorale: Ach mein herzliebes Jesulein
Cantata II
10. Sinfonia (orchestra)
11. Recitative (tenor): Und es waren Hirten in derselben Gegend
12. Chorale: Brich an, o schönes Morgenlicht
13. Recitative (tenor, soprano): Und der Engel sprach zu ihnen
14. Recitative (bass): Was Gott dem Abraham verheißen
15. Aria (tenor): Frohe Hirten, eilt, ach eilet
16. Recitative (tenor): Und das habt zum Zeichen
17. Chorale: Schaut hin, dort liegt in finstern Stall
INTERMISSION
18. Recitative (bass): So geht denn hin, ihr Hirten geht
19. Aria (alto): Schlafe, mein Liebster, genieße der Ruh
20. Recitative (tenor): Und alsobald war da bei dem Engel
21. Chorus: Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe
22. Recitative (bass): So recht, Ihr Engel, jauchzt und singet
23. Chorale: Wir singen dir in deinem Heer
Cantata III
24. Chorus: Herrscher des Himmels, erhöre das Lallen
25. Recitative (tenor): Und da die Engel von ihnen gen Himmel fuhren
26. Chorus: Lasset uns nun gehen gen Bethlehem
27. Recitative (bass): Er hat sein Volk getröst
28. Chorale: Dies hat er alles uns getan
29. Duet (soprano, bass): Herr, dein Mitleid, dein Erbarmen
30. Recitative (tenor): Und sie kamen eilend
31. Aria (alto): Schließe, mein Herze, dies selige Wunder
32. Recitative (alto): Ja, ja, mein Herz, soll es bewahren
33. Chorale: Ich will dich mit Fleiß bewahren
34. Recitative (tenor): Und die Hirten kehrten wieder um
35. Chorale: Seid froh dieweil
24. Chorus: Herrscher des Himmels, erhöre das Lallen (repeated)
To read the original German text of the first three cantatas of the Christmas Oratorio alongside their full English translation, scan the QR code below to access The Language of Song, our guide to the intersection of language and music for the MSO’s 2024.25 Classics season.
The 2024.25 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION
The length of this concert is approximately 2 hours. All programs are subject to change.
Guest Artist Biographies
MARISA KARCHIN
New York-based soprano Marisa Karchin is a compelling performer of art song, opera, and contemporary music. Karchin is pursuing a doctorate in voice at The Juilliard School, where she is a recipient of the 2023-24 Presser Award.
At Juilliard, Karchin has performed diverse chamber repertoire, including Unsuk Chin’s Akrostichon-Wortspiel at Alice Tully Hall, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and John Musto’s The Book of Uncommon Prayer. As an avid proponent of new music and interdisciplinary collaborations, Karchin has also recently performed with the Da Capo Chamber Players, Brooklyn New Music Collective, and in an immersive theater piece with Jody Oberfelder Projects. With the Glass Clouds Ensemble, a chamber collective that partners with local environmental organizations, she has held artist residencies at Yellow Barn and Avaloch Farm Music Institute and is a current Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward and Artistic Projects grant recipient.
Other recent highlights include performances with the Westchester Philharmonic String Quartet, Lehigh University’s Very Modern Ensemble, and the East Winds Quintet in a centennial performance of Earl Kim’s “Rattling On.” She has premiered many works with the Chelsea Music Festival and conductor Ken-David Masur by contemporary composers including Helen Grime, Santa Ratniece, and Aigerim Seilova.
Karchin was awarded first prize in the 2018 Joy in Singing International Art Song Competition, presenting a debut recital at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, and was a finalist in the 2020 Art Song Preservation Society’s Mary Trueman Art Song Vocal Competition. In opera, Karchin has performed in productions of Cendrillon, The Pirates of Penzance, Orlando, and Falstaff, with artist residencies at Dayton Opera and Opera Saratoga.
Guest Artist Biographies
GEORGIA BURASHKO
Canadian mezzo-soprano Georgia Burashko has been celebrated for her “full-bodied and velvety” voice and “nuanced” interpretations (Ôlyrix). Currently on tour with Les Arts Florissants and Le Jardin des Voix as a soloist in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, Burashko has performed at Teatro alla Scala, Versailles Opera House, The Lincoln Center, and the BBC Proms with the ensemble. She subsequently embarked on a solo recital tour with stops at the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, TivoliVredenberg Utrecht, and De Doelen Rotterdam.
Her current season includes debuts with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and the Grand Philharmonic Choir for Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. The 202324 season also saw Burashko perform Handel’s Messiah under the batons of Nicholas McGegan, with both the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and Edmonton Symphony, and Jeannette Sorrel with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra.
In 2022, Burashko released her debut album with harpist Michela Amici entitled Dal suono dolcissimo. Featuring 17th-century Italian music and new works for voice and baroque harp, Burashko and Amici toured their program in recital across both Italy and the Netherlands. Burashko completed a master’s in early music with distinction from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag, where she attended as a Holland Fellow with full scholarship, and was a Young Bach Fellow with De Nederlandse Bachvereniging for the 2022-23 season. Burashko was a 2019 Rebanks Family Fellow at the Glenn Gould School and holds a bachelor’s degree from McGill University, a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and has completed residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Royaumont Abbeye, and with the European Hanseatic Ensemble.
Guest Artist Biographies
MATTHEW SWENSEN
American tenor Matthew Swensen was most recently praised by the BBC for his role debut as Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff in Florence as “everything we could have hoped for; an ardent and generous tenor... simply phenomenal.’’
The 2024-25 season began in the summer with Wagner’s Der Fliegende Höllander in his debut at the Teatro Regio di Torino and again with Jaap Van Zweden and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He sings several performances of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Allentown Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, and on tour throughout Italy and Germany. He makes his debut with the Deutscher Symphoniker in Bruckner’s Te Deum in Munich and later returns in Bach›s B Minor Mass. He makes his role debut as Nemorino in New Orleans Opera’s L’Elisir D’Amore and reprises the role of Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Barbiere di Siviglia with Lyric Opera Kansas City. In April 2025, he will make his Canadian debut with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in a concert performance of Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte alongside Thomas Hampson as Don Alfonso.
The 2022-23 season began with the tenor’s American opera debut as Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Barbiere di Siviglia with New Orleans Opera, a debut at the Rheingau Music Festival in Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang Symphony, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the NDR Orchestra, and a Mozart gala concert in Perugia. He also debuted the role of Don Gomez in Weber’s rarely performed operetta, Die Drei Pintos, with the Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig.
Prior to that, Swensen sang Ferrando in Così Fan Tutte with Adam Fischer (having created this production with Zubin Mehta) as well as Fenton in Falstaff (with Sir John Eliot Gardiner) at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and made his debut at the National Theatre Prague as the Steuermann in a new production of Der Fliegende Holländer, and made several concert appearances in Florence, Dresden, and Leipzig with conductors such as Franz Welser-Möst and Alain Altinoglu. In the summer, he made his American concert debut in Mozart’s Requiem at New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival conducted by Louis Langrée.
DANIEL OCHOA
In demand on both the German and international scene, baritone Daniel Ochoa has made a name for himself as a highly versatile singer. His 202425 season includes concerts with the MDR Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, and the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as appearances at the Kölner Philharmonie, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Liederhalle Stuttgart, the Isarphilharmonie Munich, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, and Oslo Cathedral. Following an invitation from Ken-David Masur, Ochoa will make his U.S. debut with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.
Ochoa, who was born in East Germany to a German mother and an Equatorial Guinean father, discovered his love of singing at the age of five in the children’s radio choir in his hometown of Leipzig. His vocal studies took him to three universities and beyond, with inspiring teachers such as Anthony Baldwin, Hans-Joachim Beyer, Matthias Goerne, Thomas Quasthoff, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
Ochoa joined the Vienna Volksoper from 2012 to 2017. During this time, his collaboration with directors such as Brigitte Fassbaender, Achim Freyer, Marco Arturo Marelli, and Rolando Villazón provided particularly important inspiration. Among the special enrichments in Ochoa’s career are undoubtedly his encounters with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Reinhard Goebel, Howard Griffiths, Helmuth Rilling, and Paul McCreesh.
The field of lieder has always been close to Ochoa’s heart. Repeated appearances as a lieder singer at the Schumann House in Leipzig were soon followed by recitals at the Mendelssohn and Max Reger Festivals, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and the Hamburg State Opera. A highly acclaimed CD recording was made in 2018 of Gregor Meyer’s arrangement of Schubert’s Winterreise for baritone, piano, and mixed choir.
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Program notes by Elaine Schmidt
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Born 31 March 1685; Eisenach, Germany
Died 28 July 1750; Leipzig, Germany
Weihnachtsoratorium [Christmas Oratorio], BWV 248
Composed: 1734; recycles material from works as early as 1714
First performance: 25 December 1734-6 January 1735; Johann Sebastian Bach, conductor; St. Thomas and St. Nicholas churches in Leipzig
Last MSO performance: 22 December 1991; Lee Erickson, conductor; Milwaukee Symphony Chorus [excerpts]
Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes (both doubling on oboe d’amore); English horn; bassoon; 3 trumpets; timpani; harpsichord; organ; strings
Approximate duration: 1 hour and 27 minutes (Cantatas I-III)
Bach’s beloved Christmas Oratorio is not technically an oratorio. Oratorios are large narrative works, usually based on a religious story. They are often described as operas presented without costumes or scenery. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is actually a set of six sacred cantatas that Bach either wrote or retooled from sacred and secular cantatas he had written previously. He created the cantatas in 1734 for the six feast days that made up the Christmas season in German Lutheran churches of his day. The cantatas may not form a traditional oratorio, but they are deftly woven into a unified musical fabric that both tells and celebrates the Christmas story. A devout Lutheran who signed much of his music with his name and the initials SDG for Soli Deo gloria (“Glory to God alone”), Bach published very little of his music. Once a piece had been performed, he set the music aside and moved on to his next project. He reused some of his music in later pieces, as did many composers of the era, including George Frideric Handel. Bach also “borrowed” melodies from other composers, creating a new setting of each borrowed melody to suit his purpose.
Bach’s Christmas Oratorio was first performed during the Christmas/Epiphany season of 1734–1735, at the Saint Thomas and Saint Nicholas Lutheran Churches in Leipzig. The cantatas were performed, one per feast day, in the morning at one church and in the afternoon at the other, as Bach was responsible for the music at both churches. The oratorio was not performed again in its entirety until 1857 — five generations after its first performance. Were it not for composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) and his sister Fanny (1805–1847) reintroducing the works of the largely forgotten composer in now-famous performances of Bach’s St. Matthew in Berlin (1829) and Leipzig (1841), the oratorio, along with a great deal of Bach’s other music, could easily have been lost forever. It was Eduard Grell, director of the Berlin Sing-Akademie, who conducted the 1857 performance that reintroduced the Christmas Oratorio to the public. The MSO will perform the first three cantatas of the Christmas Oratorio in this program.
Cantata I
The first cantata of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, meant to be performed on Christmas Day, tells the story of Christ’s birth. This lined up with the celebration of Christmas in Germany at the time, which began on Christmas Day and ended on Epiphany (6 January). The six cantatas, often referred to as the six parts of the oratorio, are each written for singers and different instrumental ensembles, giving each cantata its own unique sound. The first cantata covers the birth of
Christ, closing with Martin Luther’s familiar hymn tune, “Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her” (“From Heaven Above to Earth I Come”), which was written in 1539 and is sung today in Christian churches of many different denominations. The orchestra for this cantata includes three trumpets and timpani, creating a grand orchestral sound in spots.
Cantata II
Bach intended the second cantata of his Christmas Oratorio for performance on the Second Day of Christmas, 26 December. It focuses on angels announcing the birth of Christ to shepherds in a field. Gone are the big sounds of trumpet and timpani in favor of strings, flutes, and oboes. With these instruments, Bach created a softer, warmer sound and a soulful, more introspective mood for this cantata than the first. The oboes are Bach’s way of replicating the shawm, an early relative of the oboe, which are known to have been carried and played by shepherds in biblical times.
Cantata III
The trumpets and timpani return in the third cantata, along with strings, flutes, and oboes. This cantata, intended for performance on the Third Day of Christmas, 27 December, depicts the shepherds’ adoration of Christ following the announcement of his birth in the second cantata. Bach had to be a bit creative in terms of the scripture readings prescribed for the various days of the Christmas season to make a flowing narrative from cantata to cantata. He combined the regal sounds of trumpets and timpani with the earthier sounds of flutes and oboes as the shepherds come to pay their respects to Christ.
