Christmas oratorio. Johann Sebastian Bach

Helmut Rilling at a concert in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. Photo - MGAF

No matter how busy the Philharmonic season is interesting music and eminent names, participation in it of Helmut Rilling always becomes the brightest event.

The current season is no exception. As part of it, on December 7, 2016 in the Concert Hall. Tchaikovsky G. Rilling conducted J. S. Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" BWV 248.

It was performed by: Bach Ensemble Helmuth Rilling (Germany), Academic big choir"Masters of Choral Singing" of the Russian State Musical Television and Radio Center (artistic director Lev Kontorovich), soloists: Julia Sophia Wagner (soprano), Lydia Viñes Curtis (mezzo-soprano), Martin Lattke (tenor), Tobias Berndt (bass).

For the first time I got acquainted with the performance of Bach's music by Helmut Rilling when I came to the rehearsal of J.S. Bach's Passion according to John on the day of the concert on March 4, 2011 at the Moscow International House of Music.

On that visit, he brought the orchestra of the International Bach Academy from Stuttgart. Then, and for all subsequent performances in Russia, Rilling chose the "Masters of Choral Singing".

To master the German language in Moscow, German tutors sent by Rilling studied with the choir for more than a month. The biggest difficulty was that the texts of J. S. Bach's oratorios were not written modern language, but old German.

A press conference took place between the rehearsal and the concert. It was on it that Rilling uttered the phrase quoted in the booklet for the concert under review:

“I find the chorus fantastic. The musicians perform the German text in such a way that I get lost and forget that this is not a German choir.”

In 2011, Rilling created the youth Bach Ensemble Helmuth Rilling on the basis of the Stuttgart Festival Ensemble. In February 2013, with this ensemble, Rilling performed Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation of the World in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In the same choir and ensemble composition, Rilling at the KZCh conducted in Moscow on November 25, 2014 the St. Matthew Passion and on November 10, 2015 Missa h-moll by J.S. Bach.

Of his extensive cantata-oratorio heritage, Bach called only three works oratorios. This is the Oratorio for the Ascension of Christ” BWV 11; Christmas Oratorio BWV 248 and Easter Oratorio BWV 249.

The most famous of them and most often performed - "Christmas Oratorio" - consisted of six parts (called cantatas in the booklet) written on the basis of church cantatas previously composed in different years on the occasion of the Nativity of Christ.

These parts were to be performed one a day in the churches of St. Thomas and St. Nicholas during the Christmas holidays: from December 25 (Christmas) to January 6 (the feast of the Epiphany; in Russia it is often called Epiphany).

All six parts are permeated with the same mood and are united by the cross-cutting plot of the Sacred History set forth in the Gospels (from Luke and Matthew).

When composing church cantatas, Bach carefully followed the correspondence of the read texts to their interpretation in musical numbers. In the oratorios, since they were not intended for worship, Bach allowed himself some deviation from the order of reading the Gospel on the day of the performance of one or another cantata.

In order for the oratorio to appear as a single whole, and not as separate cantatas, randomly collected, its libretto was published in advance, in the form of a brochure. You could get acquainted with it before the concert or in advance at home.

The oratorio consists of 64 numbers, distributed by topic as follows:

1. Birth of the Child (Nos. 1-9, the first day of Christmas, Luke 2:1, 3-7);
2. Good News (Nos. 10-23, second day, Luke 2:8-14);
3. Shepherds at the Manger of the Child (Nos. 24-35, Third Day, Luke 2:15-20);
4. The baby is named Jesus (Nos. 36-42, New Year, Feast of Circumcision, Luke 2:21);
5. Magi at King Herod (Nos. 43-53, the first Sunday after the New Year, Matt. 2:1-6);
6. Adoration of the Magi (Nos. 54–64, Theophany, Matt. 7-12).

In this concert the first three movements and the last, sixth, were performed.

The perception of each of the cantatas when they are performed one a day, of course, cannot coincide with the perception of them in a row in one concert. The sharpness of such perception is dulled from cantata to cantata.

And in general, a concert performance cannot but differ from a performance in a temple. There, emotions are more spiritual, sublime than in a concert hall. They are less open, but more sincere. The very atmosphere in the temple is conducive to this.

In addition, a sermon and reading of the Bible is heard in the church. All this enhances the impact of cantatas in the church.

In a concert, the factors of the absence of a word and the presence of random listeners, far from Christianity, must be compensated by something. This justifies the increase in the degree of emotionality of music.

By the way, maybe it is worth reading in Russian in concert performance those fragments from the Holy Scriptures that are heard in the church with these cantatas? Then the understanding of music could be an order of magnitude deeper.

This would also be useful for Russian church music performed in the Church Slavonic language, which today is not understood by the vast majority of people, even believers. And performing Russian sacred music in modern Russian is the same as singing Italian opera in Russian. After all, the prosody of the Church Slavonic language is much more musical than modern Russian.

The emotional degree of Helmut Rilling's performance of the Christmas Oratorio on December 7 was very high. Despite his 83 years, physical weakness and economical gesture, Rilling held the ensemble very firmly.

Even in young musicians, he managed to instill a sense of style and taste. It is practically an ensemble of soloists.

The jubilant trumpet of Max Westermann and the timpani player Zoltan Varga, who played old cauldrons of a very pleasant timbre with a soft, roaring sound, set the festive tone for the entire performance in No. 1.

Rahel Maria Rilling, the concertmaster of the ensemble, gave good solos, and cellist David Adoryan sounded even better. Mathieu Gosi-Ansleni - flute and Tjaina Wake-Valker - oboe played wonderfully.

The ensemble of soloists Rilling brought first-class. In the first part, there were complaints about the soprano Julia Sophie Wagner, but she had only one solo No. 7 Chorale "Er ist auf Erden Kommen arm", in which she was vocally clamped.

After the intermission, however, she sang well, in no way inferior to her colleagues, especially in a duet with bass from Cantata No. 3 "Adoration of the Shepherds" N 29 "Herr, dein Mitleid". Her second solo aria N 57 "Nur ein Wink" sounded good.

The alto part was performed by the Spanish mezzo-soprano Lydia Viñes Curtis with excellent vocals and excellent understanding of style. We are already familiar with the brilliant bass Tobias Berndt from Haydn's oratorio "The Creation" in 2013 and J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor last year.

But even in such a constellation of soloists, tenor Martin Lattke surpassed everyone. I don’t even remember if I ever heard such a magnificent tenor live in the cantata-oratorio genre. He perfectly and evenly played his entire huge and most complex part (he has 15 numbers, including a duet with bass).

The version performed by Rilling consists of 46 numbers: soprano - 5 (including one duet), alto - 5, tenor - 15, bass - 7 (including two duets), choir - 15. This alignment of voices shows that the main role in the oratorio, he belongs to the tenor (who, as in Bach's Passions, mainly plays the role of the Evangelist) and the choir.

The large choir "Masters of Choral Singing", directed by Lev Kontorovich, in collaboration with Helmut Rilling, demonstrates the highest class of world-class professionalism.

I would like to hope that the meeting of the Moscow listeners with Helmut Rilling and his ensemble was not the last.

Vladimir Oivin

II International Christmas Festival of Sacred Music "Advent"

J. S. Bach. "Christmas Oratorio"

The culminating event of the Advent festival will be a performance at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul "Christmas Oratorio" by J.S. Bach - the greatest, brightest and most solemn musical work dedicated to the Nativity of Christ. The oratorio with the words of the Gospel tells the story of the Virgin Mary and the birth of Jesus Christ, the appearance of a new star and the adoration of the Magi, while the choirs and arias complete the action, revealing the deep meaning of the spiritual message.

This concert makes this concert a very special event with a brilliant line-up of performers, magnificent interpreters of early music: soloist of the Opera Studio at the Royal Academy of Music Anna Gorbacheva (soprano), soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Daria Telyatnikova (viola), recognized European masters Richard Resch (tenor, Germany) and Dominik Wörner (bass, Germany), as well as the Soli Deo Gloria Chamber Choir, artistic director and conductor Oleg Romanenko.

With the support of the Moscow Bible Church and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Moscow.

The Christmas Oratorio was completed by Bach in 1734 in Leipzig. There are no specific characters in it, and lyrical reflections on the events of Christmas are interconnected by the recitatives of the Evangelist. The plot, borrowed from the Gospels of Luke and partly from Matthew, apparently was arranged by the composer himself, but the author of the poetic texts remained unknown.

For this oratorio, Bach combined six Christmas cantatas composed by him in different time. The first performance of the new composition took place during the Christmas holidays of late 1734 - early 1735, during the life of the composer, parts of it were repeatedly performed in Leipzig at Christmas. The most joyful and solemn parts of the cantata will be performed in the Moscow concert: 1. "The Birth of the Child", 2. "Good News", 3. "Shepherds at the Manger of the Child" and 6. "Adoration of the Magi".

Chamber Chapel "Soli Deo Gloria" in his work he refers to large-scale works of the high Baroque, and first of all to the works of Bach. Artistic director and chapel conductor Oleg Romanenko is also a director and artistic director Advent Christmas Festival.

Anna Gorbacheva(soprano) is a soloist of the Opera Studio at the Royal Academy of Music in London, a graduate of the Royal College of Music. Laureate and diploma winner of numerous international competitions in Italy, the Czech Republic, France, Austria, including the 1st Prize of the International Baroque Opera Competition. Honor in Innsbruck. The young singer's repertoire includes more than ten opera parts in the works of composers of the 18th-19th centuries, chamber programs, as well as solo parts in oratorios. Anna is involved in major international festivals, collaborates with the Hungarian State Opera House, the Handel Memorial House Museum (London), the Baroque Orchestra of the Royal College of Music and the Russian Orchestra of London.

Daria Telyatnikova(viola) - soloist of the Bolshoi Theater of Russia, graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. In 2010-2012 - soloist of the Academy of Young Singers Mariinsky Theater, in the 2012/2013 season - an artist of the International Opera Studio in Zurich. In 2013 she made her debut at the Bolshoi Theatre. Since 2013 she has also been a soloist with the Perm Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. She took part in the Stars of the White Nights festival (St. Petersburg), performed on the stage of the Comunale Theater of Ferrara (Italy), the Berlin Philharmonic, the Megaron Concert Hall (Athens), the Paris Cite de la Musique, the Concert Hall. P. I. Tchaikovsky, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. D. D. Shostakovich, collaborates with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia. E. F. Svetlanova and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra Musica Viva.

Richard Resch(tenor) - a graduate of the Leopold Mozart Center High School of Music (Augsburg) and the Basel Academy of Music Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he studied early music. Participated in master classes of leading experts in the field of historical performance, specialized in the oratorio genre. Laureate of a number of international competitions in Italy and Germany. He worked at opera houses in Augsburg, Braunschweig, Bregenz, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Collaborated with such conductors as K. Eschenbach, H. Rilling, A. Shpering, with many renowned orchestras, including the Bergensky philharmonic orchestra, Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra, Capella Istropolitana, Leipzig Chamber Orchestra, New Choir Munich, Bach-Collegium in Stuttgart, Sinfonia Varsovia and others. the great German composer (Immortal-Bach-Ensemble, Chapelle de la Vigne, Luthers Bach Ensemble Groninge and Bachkantaten).

Dominic Wörner(bass) - studied church music in Stuttgart and Bern, improved his skills at master classes of leading European experts in the field of historical performance. Already a student, he gave concerts in Switzerland, Poland, Great Britain and Germany, became the winner of a number of competitions, among which international competition them. J. S. Bach in Leipzig (I prize). He quickly gained European fame as an excellent performer of parts in oratorio compositions, took part in various festivals: the Boston Early Music Festival, the Bach Festival in Leipzig, the London Proms, Handel Days in Halle, the Suntory Hall Festival in Tokyo, etc. Collaborated with conductors F. Herreweghe, T. Hengelbrock, K. Coin, K. Saint-Clair, Collegium Vocale orchestras (Ghent), Champs Elysees Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Bremen Chamber Orchestra, Capella Istropolitana. He has records on radio and television, has repeatedly participated in the creation of audio recordings of early music (compositions by Monteverdi, Schutz, Rosenmuller). The singer also brilliantly established himself in the modern repertoire (he has a number of world premieres to his credit) and as a performer of Lied (in his repertoire vocal cycles Schubert, Mahler, etc.).

Oleg Romanenko conductor, graduate of the Moscow Conservatory. P. I. Tchaikovsky (2008); improved the art of symphonic conducting under the direction of Teodor Currentzis, worked with the MusicAeterna orchestra and the New Siberian Singers choir. In 2007 he created the Moscow Ensemble of Soloists Vocalitis, with which he successfully toured to Austria, Germany, Italy and the USA, performing Russian and European sacred and classical choral music, and recorded two CDs. Since 2007 he has been collaborating with the Austrian chamber orchestra Louise Spohr Sinfonietta. In 2008 he created the Soli Deo Gloria Chamber Chapel. Under the direction of O. Romanenko, “Messiah” by G. F. Handel, “Seven Words of the Savior on the Cross” by J. Haydn, the Russian premiere of the oratorio “Death and Sunday” by E. Sheve, “Passion according to Matthew” by Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev), Cantata 4, 31, 80, 140, 147 John Passion and Magnificat by J. S. Bach.

Funds raised at the concert will go to charitable causes:

1. Help in the treatment of little Nastya, who is in the "Kolomensky specialized children's home".

Nastya is 4 years old. The girl's mother issued a refusal to raise a child and consent to adoption a month after birth without a written explanation of the reasons.

Nastya was born with a congenital defect of the central nervous system, an operation was performed, but this defect gives complications.

The main task is to give Nastya the opportunity to stand and walk independently. For this, courses of treatment and comprehensive rehabilitation, including surgical treatment, are carried out.

But for the formation of legs, maintaining the effect achieved by surgery, for proper verticalization and walking, she needs high-quality orthoses and the right shoes.

2. Project "Medicines" of the Charitable Foundation "Give Life" (30% of the funds raised)

One of the most important tasks of the fund is to provide clinics with medicines, the purchase of which is not paid from the state budget. As a rule, these are the most modern drugs. Their cost is very high, but the effect of their use is also very high. Purchased at the end of the year a large number of medicines for future use before price increases early next year, and by the end of the year there are usually children who are no longer covered by the annually set state quota for free medicines.

12. Christmas Oratorio: the history of creation, the image of the Savior in the first cantata

Oratorio or cantata cycle?

musically, the Lutheran church year begins, perhaps, with the feast of the Nativity of Christ, or rather, with this long period Christmas time, which begins on the first day of Christmas and ends with the feast of the Epiphany, as is customary in the Orthodox tradition, or the Feast of the Magi, the Three Kings, as it is called in the Lutheran tradition.

For this period church choir Bach wrote quite a lot of music, very beautiful and varied. This was facilitated by the fact that Advent, the Advent fast, with the exception of the first week, is the so-called tempus clausum, i.e. the closed time, the time of silence, the time when this modern figurative music was not performed, i.e. Bach cantatas. It was a time for both rest and creativity, of course, and therefore, at the end of this period, Bach worked with might and main and his beautiful works appeared.

Of course, we will not cover everything here, and we will not even try to do this, but we will focus our attention on a work that is absolutely outstanding, on what Bach himself called the "Christmas Oratorio" and what today is often called "Bach's cycle of cantatas called" Christmas oratorio, written just for the Christmas season. Here, of course, a big scientific (but not abstract scientific!) problem arises, namely the genre of this work.

The fact is that all parts of the oratorio, and there are six of them, were performed by Bach as expected, in the church, during the service, and at the very place where his cantatas were traditionally performed. All six parts of the “Christmas Oratorio”, and they sound with us on the first three days of Christmas, on the New Year (according to the church, this is the feast of the Circumcision of the Lord and the Name), then on the first Sunday of the New Year and just on the Feast of the Magi.

These six movements are uniform, they all begin with a sumptuous, solemn choir, or in one case with an instrumental symphony, an instrumental piece, but also of a very festive character. And they all end with a church chorale, in which echoes, fragments of the music of their initial number are sure to sound. All these parts contain gospel narratives, recitatives of the evangelist. Most often these are two fragments, but it happens in different ways. And besides, two numbers in the genre of an aria are obligatory, which can be solo, or can be a duet or a tercet. So the structure turns out to be uniform and similar in many ways. Why not call it, properly speaking, a cycle of cantatas?

Almost everything is possible, but there are two obstacles. The first is purely external, and here one could get by with some excuses. Because Bach himself called it an oratorio, not a cycle of cantatas, and Bach himself called parts of this oratorio parts, not cantatas. This is the first moment. Here one could say that yes, Bach named it, but in fact it is so, and the arguments in favor of this point of view, we have seen, are quite weighty.

But in fact there is one very important point. The fact is that the gospel text, the very text that the evangelist sings in these cantatas, does not quite correspond to the readings of the church year. Those. in some cases, the correspondence is quite large, but in general, the discrepancy is quite significant, to the point that on the third day of Christmas in the Lutheran tradition it is customary to read the beginning of the Gospel of John, while Bach continues reading the Gospel of Luke, the second chapter - the one in which tells about the worship of the shepherds. Thus, in this case, Bach, composing his works very close to cantatas, focused not on reading the church day, as he usually did, but on the biblical gospel story about the Nativity of Christ. There are two such stories in the Gospel. The first of them is found in the Gospel of Luke and, perhaps, was written down by the evangelist Luke from the words of the mother of Jesus, the Most Holy Theotokos. This is just a story about the worship of the shepherds.

And the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is what we know just as the adoration of the Magi. It turns out that the first three parts of the oratorio follow the Gospel of Luke, talking about the worship of the shepherds. Here we must once again remember that just on the first three days of the holiday, this festive time, these three cantatas, or rather parts of the oratorio, were performed.

The fourth part stands alone. It just tells about the naming of Jesus by the appropriate name - we will talk about this in a special lecture. And the fifth and sixth parts tell about the worship of the Magi. Those. for Bach it was important in this case not to reflect what is read and comprehended in the church, but to reflect the gospel. This orientation towards the gospel, towards gospel history is just very important feature oratorios. And even what in the Lutheran tradition, in the Lutheran music of the 17th century, was called "history".

Origin of the genre

Here it is necessary to make one more small digression and say that the oratorio is an Italian genre by origin. It originated in the chapels or chapels of the Roman churches, where it was associated with pious spiritual assemblies in which music occupied a large place and which eventually became something like spiritual concerts in which music gradually assumed a dominant position. Moreover, these oratorios eventually became an analogue of the opera, only without stage action- such a kind of pious spiritual opera. And this genre was, of course, non-liturgical, it was a separate pious Roman practice, which took root first in Italy, and then in many parts of Europe.

Lutherans in the 17th century did not have such a practice, but there were stories. Those. on the major holidays of the church year, gospel texts were read in a singsong voice and subsequently set to music - those that tell about the Nativity of Christ, of course, about the passions, about the Resurrection, the Ascension, sometimes also about the Annunciation - that the life of Christ begins from the moment of his conception. And sometimes they wrote: "The history of the conception of Christ." This music was, of course, much more modest than in Italy, but nevertheless, this internal spiritual theatricalization took place.

And there were real masterpieces. If we are talking about Christmas music, then this, of course, is the "History of the Nativity" by Heinrich Schutz, the largest Lutheran master of sacred music of the pre-Bach era of the 17th century. And such stories were just important in that the gospel text remained intact in them. If the librettists of the Italian oratorios paraphrased it and gave it some sometimes touching, sometimes shaking the soul of a believer, images in order to evoke spiritual feelings, then the Lutherans tried to strictly adhere to this text, which, of course, was due to the peculiarities of the Lutheran faith and its focus on the Gospel , to this very sola scriptura, which we talked about at the first lecture.

In the 18th century, of course, everything changed. And above all, through the efforts of poets, spiritual oratorios appeared in Germany. It was inevitable, the poets wanted to write spiritual poetry no worse than their Italian counterparts. But in Germany, this kind of oratorio got its own specifics.

First, many of them still retained a direct connection with the major feasts of the church year - with the feasts associated with the most important events in the life of Christ, which I listed. Christmas, death after suffering, Resurrection, Ascension and some other moments that are just like stories and are presented in the Gospel.

And secondly, in many oratorio German spiritual works of the first half of XVIII century, the text of the evangelist is preserved, as in Bach's "Christmas Oratorio". Those. Bach was guided by a very old German tradition. The tradition of German history, enriched by everything that fashionable, modern Italian music and, in general, the Catholic partly spiritual tradition could give the Lutherans and enrich their church practice.

Therefore, Bach understood very well when he wrote that this is an oratorio in six parts. Such multi-part oratorios, performed for several days, existed in Germany. In particular, in Lübeck and in some other northern German cities, such spiritual concerts were held as early as the 17th century. But they were usually held outside the framework of worship. This could be due to some, say, fair periods, when the performance of any beautiful and at the same time pious music was welcomed, and simply to the fact that wealthy Hanseatic merchants, townspeople wanted to receive some kind of spiritual pleasure, to have their own analogue of spiritual theater. After all, a musical, opera theater opens in Germany in different cities only from the end of the 17th century.

So Bach relied on tradition, Bach continued tradition. And so he creates his "Christmas Oratorio". He creates it in a completely unusual way. And this image did not fit into the heads of the representatives musical culture XIX and in many ways the twentieth century, that this work was often greatly underestimated.

Three secular cantatas

Imagine Advent. This is still 1734, although the oratorio is two years old - 1734 and 1735. It turns out that the New Year is the fourth part. So, on this very Advent, when Bach allegedly has nothing to do, he takes up his great secular cantatas composed in the last two years, addressed to the Saxon ruling family. Bach at this very time was struggling to become a court Saxon composer and tried his best to please Dresden. We know that the first part of Bach's famous Grand Mass in B Minor, which contains the chants "Kyria" and "Gloria", was written clean and presented in the early 1930s as a gift to this family.

And then Bach, together with this very Collegium Musicum, which traced its ancestry from Telemann and which we talked about at the lecture before last, performed all sorts of loyal congratulatory cantatas in Leipzig in honor of this family. Of course, Elector Friedrich August II himself, aka the Polish King August III, because, as you know, at that time this family combined these two titles and were rulers of two states at once - and so, this king, aka Elector, could not hear this music directly. But there were newspaper ads, information was spread even through rumors. Thus, Bach was sure that it would reach the ears of the august person that in Leipzig, subjects were performing music in her honor.

And three such cantatas formed the basis of the Christmas Oratorio. These are cantatas 213, 214 and 215. They were created in that order. Cantata 213 was first performed on September 5, 1733 and timed to coincide with the eleventh birthday of the elector's son Frederick, still a very young boy - this is the cantata "Hercules at the Crossroads". Well, Hercules is usually a certain model of the ruling family, such an ideal monarch - they saw him in this very figure very often. And therefore, in many cases, it is precisely the figure of Hercules as an allegory of the ruler that arises.

"Hercules at the Crossroads" is a moralizing instructive cantata about what moral choice the young man must do. And he must choose between virtue, Tugend, and effeminacy, or depraved voluptuousness, as you wish, and translate - Wollust. Here, between these two ladies, by the way, who sing in the appropriate voices - soprano and tenor - is alto Hercules and makes a choice. An instructive thing, a boy at the age of 11 had to learn to understand women, with whom he was more likely to go along the way. With the voluptuousness with which he spends his life in effeminacy and, in fact, oversleep it - voluptuousness sings a lullaby to him. We will talk about this later, because the lullaby was also included in the subsequent parts of the oratorio. Or with virtue, which will never let him sleep, but will always guide him and aspire to great deeds.

The other two cantatas, perhaps not so remarkable in terms of plot, are more traditional. Drama per Musica, i.e. in fact, a small allegorical opera in the understanding of the beginning of the 18th century in Germany is the 214th cantata, congratulations to the wife of the Elector Maria Josef on December 8, 1733.

And, finally, the 215th cantata, the most recent of the three, first performed on October 5, 1734, was already addressed directly to the Polish king and the Saxon elector and was dedicated precisely to the anniversary of his reign as Polish king, gaining a title, which he very much sought. This is such a special type - a loyal cantata. And in, it appears and soon, in the same 1734, it is processed into an offering no longer to an earthly lord, not to an earthly king, but to the King of Heaven.

Retexting and a holistic theological system

So, all or almost all the choirs and arias from these cantatas, very many, are taken and transferred to the "Christmas Oratorio". Naturally, they are not just transferred, but retextured. Retextured masterfully. Probably, this was just the work of the great doki in these matters of Picander, about whom we also spoke at the lecture before last. And probably all this was carried out under the supervision of Bach. Probably, Bach did not have enough time: if he worked very carefully with the first parts, then, even judging by the manuscripts, in the end he already had to hurry, because, alas, alas, Advent is small, and the work was big. Why was she big? Because the matter was by no means limited to the re-texting of choirs and arias.

Of course, in the view of modern man, what is an oratorio or cantata by Bach? First of all, this is beautiful, detailed, sensual music, these very detailed choirs and arias. Unless this is just some very thoughtful Christian listener, then he will not pay attention to chorales, recitatives, gospel or author's, written in madrigal texts. He will consider all this as some kind of interlude, when he just rests between beautiful music.

Meanwhile, the works of Bach are a very strong, thoughtful theological whole. whole theological system. And in this respect, this work stands out against the background of everything that Bach wrote before. Here he is not just responding to some day of the church year, he is actually trying to collect and express the entire Christian faith.

And what is the paradox here? After all, Christmas is, it would seem, only the beginning. Christian history, well, or at least the beginning of the life of Jesus Christ, how can there be the fullness of the Christian faith here? But from these events, a believer can see the whole history of Christ's life, and even see him in this huge context - almost from the creation of the world to the end of the world, to the second coming and doomsday. And to awaken all this experience, it was necessary to try very hard. It was necessary to create this multitude of allusions and the breadth of meanings, which Bach was striving for here. Consequently, this is a very complex work, in which one must understand the words very well and understand the details well, because the horizons of meanings here truly know no boundaries, they are limitless.

Beginning of the first cantata - chorus and tenor recitative

Thus, we are dealing not just with the wonderful music of Bach, but with a very complex spiritual whole. And it is necessary to understand it very gradually, thoughtfully and slowly, not succumbing to some external temptations, not succumbing, for example, to the beauty and glorifying power of the first choir of the first part of the oratorio. (We will probably only have time to talk about the first part today.)

This choir is just taken from the 214th cantata, the one dedicated to the Elector's wife Maria Josef. There it is called very simply: “Tönet, ihr Pauken!”, i.e. "Thunder, timpani!" And the timpani really rumble here, and the trumpets, as expected, always play together with the timpani, and all this, of course, in the royal key of D major, in which trumpets traditionally played - old, baroque, natural, i.e. which are based on the principle of the overtone scale, which are played without additional valves, as in a modern trumpet, but are played using pure overtones as they sound, which gives a special beauty of timbre. You will hear it well that the baroque trumpet sounds absolutely amazing.

And, of course, here, in this first issue, everything is fine, everything is as it should be: “Rejoice, rejoice, rise up, praise this day, glorify what the Almighty has created today!” All these praises are very effective, and the choir itself is very large, and we have been given such a solemn portal. But, having passed through this portal and really experienced all the joy and all the jubilation of the holiday, all its rich decoration, musical in this case, because the Christmas holiday requires such decoration, there cannot be such a low-budget Christmas ... And Bach, of course, musically extremely generous and wasteful in this case. But, having passed through this chorus, we find ourselves in further music, the depth of which we have to appreciate.

And, in fact, the subtleties begin from the very beginning. The second number is the evangelist's recitative. It tells, according to the Gospel of Luke, how the command came from Caesar Augustus to make a census throughout the earth, about the journey of Joseph and the pregnant Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and it all ends with the fact that the time has come to give birth. This is a very important point, Bach attaches great importance to this concentration of time on one sacred moment, and this moment focuses everything around itself. And the Nativity of Christ is the center of all meanings. This moment, which we have been waiting for a long time, is happening. And the fact that we have been waiting for it for a long time should immediately be reflected.

Numbers three and four - recitative and aria viola

The next numbers are three and four. This is an alto recitative accompanied by instruments, and, moreover, very important instruments: these are two oboes d'amore, two instruments, the semantics of which we have already talked a little with you. Here the name is also important, it is associated with love, and the timbres are important for their density and richness, because all this really symbolizes love. And the recitative also begins with very important words: “Behold, my beloved Bridegroom is born today on earth.”

The aria that sounds after him is the aria of the bride, the daughter of Zion, who is waiting for her Bridegroom and greets her Bridegroom. We will use here the translation of Father Pyotr Meshcherinov: “Behold in yourself, Zion, be drawn from the heart to your Beautiful Beloved!” Or what else can be said? That this same den Schönsten, den Liebsten - "most beautiful, most beloved." And “Let your cheeks now shine with much beauty.” This same Zion, in the person of the daughter of Zion, the bride, is waiting for the Bridegroom. This is how Advent is reflected - the very time when Christians waited for the coming of the Savior for several weeks.

But there is another important point here. This is the key in A minor. The tonality that Bach has is very symbolic. If we remember the Passion according to Matthew, and we remember them not by chance, then there is just an aria associated with the image of the Savior and conveying it most vividly, the soprano aria “Aus Liebe ...”, “My Savior will die for love, he does not sin knows”, she is also in this very A minor. A minor is not just a symbol of the Savior, but a symbol of his love, a symbol of the fact that the Savior is, first of all, this desired Bridegroom of the human soul. And this wedding symbolism passes from the St. Matthew Passion here, to the first cantata, the first part of the Christmas Oratorio.

It is also very interesting that Bach works very subtly with the original material. Because in the 213th cantata, from which this aria is taken, it is the aria of Hercules, who addresses nothing less than Voluptuousness, Softness, the very character he must reject. This is already one of latest numbers cantata, and there the text is very curious. What does Hercules say? "I don't want to listen to you, I don't want to know you, depraved voluptuousness, I don't know you."

And the middle section is generally very good: “So the snakes that wanted to catch me, lulled, I had already tore and destroyed a long time ago.” And this Hercules, who recalls how he tore apart the snakes (an episode known from mythology), and who drives away the woman who tried to seduce him - that's all, all this music is superimposed on a completely new, different text.

Due to what is this happening? Changing strokes. In Bach's secular cantata, these are staccato, jerky strokes, but here everything is much more fluid, much more melodious due to the fact that Bach changed the strokes to smoother ones and also emphasized such a dance beginning in rhythm by changing the strokes. Those. now it is the dance of the bride before the groom. Plus the instrumentation has changed. If there were only strings playing in unison, then this oboe d'amore with its warm paint is added here. So, due to intonation, due to strokes, due to timbres, Bach completely recolors the text. And now we can compare what sounded in the secular cantata - this almost aria of anger - and this aria of love, the aria of longing for the Bridegroom, which Bach sounds in a spiritual cantata. The affect is completely changed by very fine Bach work.

Fifth number - chorale and center of the cantata

Further, after these two numbers, which already give us the image of Advent, the central, fifth number of this cantata sounds. Really central because there are four rooms before it and four rooms after it. This is the first of the chorales, the first of the adaptations of spiritual songs that will be performed here in the cantata. This is the first stanza of a song by Paul Gerhardt, one of the leading German spiritual poets of the mid-17th century, included in the fifth edition spiritual collection Johannes Kruger, this is 1653. We are talking about the practice of musical piety, and again the word pietatis, pietas, which refers us to pietism, appears in the title.

And the text itself is as follows: “How can I accept you, how can I go out to meet you, O He whom the whole world longs for, O ornament of my soul! Jesus, oh Jesus, kindle my lamp... Here, of course, is a reference to these same lamps with which virtuous wise virgins should meet Jesus. “... so that what pleases You, I know and do.” This text sounds like a melody famous song in the Lutheranism of that time, to which quite a lot of different texts were sung and to which, in particular, another song by Paul Gerhardt is sung, passionate: “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden”, “O wounded and bloodied brow”. This melody is heard five times in the Matthew Passion, four times just with the stanzas of this very song, the fifth time with another song.

And at the most important moment of the Matthew Passion, at the moment of Jesus' death, the most amazing version of this song sounds, which Bach harmonized with absolutely soul-cutting dissonances, and the stanza is a Christian's dying prayer that Jesus save him from the horror of death agony. And there is a big dispute between Bach scholars regarding this coincidence of melodies in the Christmas and passionate music of Bach. At the same time, as they say, points of view change according to fashion. If at first, when this coincidence was discovered, very great importance was attached to it, they wrote that Bach seemed to refer us to the Passion of Christ at this very moment, then, on the contrary, they began to say that, they say, in Leipzig it is much better than this the melody was known in connection with the Christmas carol of Paul Gerhardt, that not everyone in Bach's time could perceive such an allusion and in fact there is no need to draw hasty conclusions, this is almost an accidental coincidence.

I think that, of course, this coincidence for Bach was not accidental, because there is too much figurative commonality between the Matthew Passion and the beginning of the Christmas Oratorio. This is, first of all, the image of Jesus the Bridegroom, Jesus as the embodiment of love, Jesus as the bridegroom, who is also pure and sinless. And the key in A minor, which symbolically unites these two works. So, maybe Bach did not even count on the fact that all the parishioners would immediately understand that this is a reflection of the Matthew Passion, but he should not have counted on this either.

He worked for centuries, although he did not expect that it would later be as widely performed as it is performed in our times. He had a different eternity - a religious eternity. He, after all, fulfilled his Beruf, his calling before the Creator. Beruf in German is “profession”, let me remind you. So he had some criteria of his own. I think that according to these criteria, there was certainly a connection, and this connection is very important.

Yes, and he very expressively, I must say, harmonized this fifth number, this chorale. And besides that, he saturated it with very interesting symbolism. If we listen, and even better look at the notes, because not everyone can perceive it by ear, in the viola part - not the most prominent part in this chorale - such steps, intonations of steps are noticeable. Ta-ram, pa-ram... As if someone is walking. Who goes? Bridegroom, Savior! As a matter of fact, we can even trace these steps if we look very carefully and listen to the third and fourth numbers, where the viola sings. And then at the viola, as if these steps continue and persist, and all this leads us further.

No 6 and 7 – tenor recitative and soprano chorale with bass recitative

The sixth number tells directly about the Nativity of Christ, about the fact that there was no place for Him and the Mother of God in the hotel, as we know, and all this leads to the most important, or rather, perhaps, to the second most important number in this part. Again, this is not an aria, surprisingly, but this is a number that combines a soprano chorale. Moreover, in this case, this chorale is not a cantional, not this simple, in a chordal warehouse, four-part chorale, as is most often the case with Bach, but this is exactly the chorale that the soprano sings accompanied by continuo, i.e. accompaniment, and three more developed melodic parties.

Above are two oboes d'amore, of course, and below is a cello with a bassoon, which also plays the third such developed melody. And it is precisely the intonations of the steps that receive a very wide development with these instruments. There is no longer any doubt here, what was in the background is brought to the fore - that the Savior is just walking here, the Bridegroom is about to be.

It's like the first layer, the first layer. And here the sixth stanza of a Lutheran song is used as a chorale, in this case a Lutheran song, very early, it appeared for the first time in the collection of 1524, “Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ”, i.e. "Praise be to Thee, Jesus Christ." This is generally one of the first Lutheran songs. Each of the stanzas here ends with the exclamation Kyrieleis, i.e. Kyrie, eleison - "Lord, have mercy." Accordingly, what are we talking about here? “To the poor, he came to earth to show us His mercy, to give us a treasure in heaven and to liken us to his angels. Lord have mercy!" Here it is very important, because here we are talking about something: the descent from heaven to earth of Jesus. The one who is in heaven descends to earth, and people on earth become like angels. He humiliates himself so that people in their human dignity rise to angelic heights.

And each of the lines is commented by the bass with its recitative. This is, apparently, the creation of Picander. The recitative is, of course, full of pathos. Here, as expected, it is necessary to exclaim with great pathos in response to these very lines. “Who can truly magnify the love that our Savior has for us?” You see, the bass immediately sends us back to love. “And to whom is it given to know how much he is touched by the sufferings of people?” Where it is about the suffering of people, even before that, the soprano goes into minor spheres with his chorale, there the A minor is also affected, the one that is important, but the D minor is also affected. Re, let me remind you, this is the same royal tonality with which it all began and which is very important. And therefore, here again the sufferings of men and the sufferings of Jesus converge. Jesus suffers to relieve people's suffering. This is a very important point.

And the two lines are joined at the end. “And liken them to their angels,” the soprano sings, and the bass replies: “That is why He is born a man.” Those. Again, this is the belittling of oneself by God. And when he says "man", then Bach is acting paradoxically here. Here it would be possible to put the melody down. We will now hear with you, he exclaims - “Mensch!” - such a wide jump by a whole octave, which of you can imagine. Those. it's the same note, just in the next range. Here he exclaims "Mensch", and even the most dissonant in Bach's time, a diminished consonance, a diminished seventh chord, appears at this moment. Those. this is how it is fitting for Christ to suffer is shown here. And this is very important, because if we talked about the fact that the "Passion according to Matthew" found its reflection in the first part, then the "Passion according to John" also found its reflection.

Of course, here I would have to give several lectures on the Passion according to John in order to comment on this very theologically difficult work, but it can be said that Bach here gave an autocommentary on his early Leipzig work. Because there, in fact, we are talking about a happy exchange, which we talked about at the first lecture, i.e. when Jesus the Bridegroom dresses in the sins of his bride and takes on her suffering so that the bride will dress in the glory of her Bridegroom and be delivered from these sufferings.

And, in fact, all the "Passion according to John" just tell about the Tsar (there is the most important theme, and the most important tonality of the "Passion according to John" is in D major), who is an amazing King, who is unlike all earthly Kings. All earthly Kings, as you and I understand, live in palaces, triumph over their enemies, are surrounded by honors, they play trumpets and timpani rattle, and Jesus wins with his visible, seeming weakness, by the fact that He strives not for earthly honors, not for earthly luxury, but seeks to belittle himself to the limit. And thanks to this, he defeats the ancient enemy of man, atones for the sin of Adam, and everything that should happen happens. This is the salvation of mankind.

The Passion according to John tells us about such an amazing king. Why does Jesus do this, why does he do this? Because he loves humanity. The Matthew Passion already speaks of this. Bach wrote two great passions that complement each other very well and form a single theological whole. We must note this with you, it is very important. And here he is, as it were, everything that was in the two Passions, in his two great works, as if giving a summary to this.

In the seventh issue, all this boundless totality of meanings is expressed. And after all, with what gospel words is this connected? That there was no place in the hotel. What priests very often preach about at Christmas: that Jesus, instead of being born in the royal chambers, is born in a barn, in the dirtiest and most inappropriate place, not only for a king, but for any baby, in unsanitary, one might say, conditions. It is this amazing King who comes into the world. And the seventh issue reminds us of this.

Eighth number - bass aria with solo trumpet

After that, you can safely return to what was originally. The eighth number is an aria that glorifies the king. And as expected, this is a bass aria with a solo trumpet. “Great lord, O mighty King, beloved Savior, O how little you value earthly luxury! The one who keeps the whole world, who makes up its luxury and decoration, sleeps in a hard manger.

Middle section. Well, even in the middle section, when you go a little into the minor sphere, as it should be in a da capo aria, if there is a major, then in the middle it is most often a minor, a feeling of luxury is still preserved. That is, although, of course, the aria also reflects a spiritual meaning, it cannot reflect it to the extent that a combination of a church song and a recitative written by the poet can do.

By the way, what else is interesting: the sixth stanza will receive its continuation. The seventh stanza, "Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ," will be heard in the third part of the oratorio, where it turns out that Jesus is love. There it will be said directly, in plain text, including at the beginning of the seventh stanza. Those. Bach casts nets very subtly. It does not just use some separate stanzas - they are used to get a continuation, so that the meaning develops through different parts.

And here the aria of the trumpet and bass, of course, brings us back to the original mood. Having thought deeply about the meaning, we nevertheless, on the whole, continue to rejoice and celebrate. After all, the first day of Christmas, when should we rejoice, if not on this day! And when shall we enjoy the joys of the earth!

Another, of course, a funny moment, perhaps it needs to be mentioned. Initially, this aria was included in the 214th cantata, congratulatory to Maria Josepha, Elector. And there it was called a little differently: “Kron und Preis gekrönter Damen”, i.e. "A lady crowned with a crown and praise." Here the gender has completely changed! There the ruler was praised, here we praise the Heavenly King. But this is nothing to worry about, because everything that was the best and was presented on earth to illustrious persons, perhaps even for some political purposes and not selfishly, this very best can also be presented to the Savior, and why not? These are all very real and possible things.

Final chorale

And after this magnificent aria, the final chorale, the final church hymn, resounding here, returns the melodic material of the first number, as, in fact, in all (except one, we will say about this) parts of this oratorio. The final chorale of the first part is also Luther's. By the way, the abundance of Luther's chorales in the first part (well, with the exception of Paul Gerhardt, who was needed for very special reasons) is not accidental, because in the first part you need to rely on tradition.

This is the 13th stanza of Luther's also famous Christmas carol, written by him in 1535 as a gift to his children, by the way. Christmas present, huh? You can go to the store and do shopping, or you can compose a spiritual song about Christmas. And then, in fact, all Lutherans - they are the spiritual children of Luther. "Vom Himmel hoch, Da komm ich her", i.e. “From heavenly heights I go, I bring you joyful news,” the angel sings. And he, in fact, then, in the following stanzas - naturally, this is the beginning of the first stanza - explains what this very message is about.

Here is the thirteenth stanza - “Ah, the joy of my heart, Baby Jesus make a soft and clean cradle for yourself and rest in the depths of my soul so that I never forget you. In this case, I used the translation of Father Peter. And this is very important, because the ultimate goal of listening to all this music is that everything is imprinted in the heart. And what is imprinted in the heart is imprinted in human memory.

This is the miracle of the Christ Child, which consists not only in the fact that the Son of God was born, but also in the fact that, looking at this Son of God, at this Infant, we see the entire subsequent history of his life, and therefore the history of the salvation of mankind . This is a miracle, it must enter the human heart. And for this, a holiday, and for this, all these various facets of a holiday, which is adorned with the best Bach music, in which the meanings of the holiday are expressed either in musical luxury, by no means devoid of spiritual meaning, then in music that avoids external luxury, but in terms of the subtlety of its work, in terms of the depth of semantic games - I don’t even know if it’s games or something much more subtle - in terms of the depth of some kind of revelation of spiritual meaning, it is a treasure and a jewel in no way less than that which strikes us with more outward beauty.

Sources

1. Dürr A. The Cantatas of J. S. Bach. With Their Librettos in German-English Parallel Text / rev. and transl. by Richard D. P. Jones. N. Y. and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. pp. 102–105.
2. Blankenburg W. Das Weinachts-Oratorium von Johann Sebastian Bach. 5 Auflage. Kassel u.a.: Bärenreiter, 2003. 156 S.
3. Bossuyt I. Johann Sebastian Bach, Christmas oratorio (BWV 248). Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2004. 185 p.
4. Nasonov R. A. Two views on the Christ Child (the story of the Nativity in the interpretation of H. Schutz and J. S. Bach). Essay II (beginning). "How can I receive You?" // Scientific Bulletin of the Moscow Conservatory. 2010. No. 1. P. 118–136.
5. Rathey M. Bach's Major Vocal Works. music. Drama, Liturgy. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016. pp. 35–71.
6. Rathey M. Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio: Music, Theology, Culture. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. 432 p.

Oratorio

ital. oratorio, from Late Lat. Oratorium - chapel, from lat. oro - I say, I pray
A major piece of music for choir, singer-soloists and symphony orchestra, written, as a rule, on a dramatic plot and intended for concert performance. The oratorio occupies an intermediate position between the opera and the cantata, almost simultaneously with which, at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, it was born. Like an opera, the Oratorio includes solo arias, recitatives, ensembles and choirs; as in the opera, the action in the Oratorio develops on the basis of dramatic plot. A specific feature of the Oratorio is the predominance of narrative over dramatic action, i.e., not so much a show of events, as in an opera, but a story about them. having a lot common features with a cantata, the Oratorio differs from the latter in its larger size, larger scale of development, and more clearly outlined plot. The Oratorio is also characterized by drama and the disclosure of the theme in the heroic-epic plan.

Initially, the Oratorios were written mainly on biblical and gospel texts and were often intended to be performed directly in the temple on the days of the corresponding church holidays. Special "Christmas", "Easter" and "passion" Oratorios, the so-called "passions" (Passionen), were created. In the process of historical development, the Oratorio acquired an increasingly secular character and completely switched to the concert stage.

The immediate predecessors of the Oratorio are considered to be medieval liturgical performances, the purpose of which was to explain to the parishioners the Latin text of divine services, which was incomprehensible to them. Liturgical performances were accompanied by singing and completely obeyed the church ritual. By the end of the 15th century in connection with the general decline of the Catholic Church, liturgical dramas begin to degenerate. A new upsurge in sacred music is associated with the era of the Reformation; the Catholic clergy were forced to look for other means to assert their shattered influence. Around 1551, the church leader F. Neri founded "prayer meetings" (Congregazione dell "Oratorio) at the Roman monastery of San Girolamo with the aim of propaganda catholic doctrine outside the temple. Visitors gathered in special rooms at the church, the so-called oratories, that is, prayer halls for reading and interpreting the Bible, Holy Scripture, etc. At the "meetings" spiritual scenes were played out, which were divided into two sections of the sermon. The narration in the form of psalmody was conducted by the narrator (evangelist), and during the "sacred action" (azione sacra), the choir performed laudas - spiritual chants such as madrigals, which were originally written by G. Animuccia, later Palestrina. Later, at such meetings, special allegorical dramas began to be performed, mysteries of moralistic content, in which abstract concepts (pleasure, peace, time, etc.) were personified. Such performances were called rappresentazione, as well as storia, misterio, dramma di musiche, etc. Gradually, the name of the place where these performances took place was transferred to the performances themselves, and Oratorios began to be opposed to the mass. The term "Oratorio" as a designation of a major musical and dramatic form is first encountered in musical literature in 1640.

First Oratorio "Submission of Soul and Body"("Rappresentazione di anima et di corpo") by E. del Cavalieri, which appeared in 1600, was essentially a moral-allegorical drama, still closely associated with stage effects (costumes, scenery, acting, dancing). Its main characters were allegories: il mondo - light, la vita humana - human life, il corpo - body, il piacere - pleasure, intelletto - mind.

The music consisted of choral madrigals and recitatives in the style of rappresentativo - "pictorial", developed by a circle (camerata) of composers and poets led by J. Bardi at the Medici court in Florence. The melody was based on basso continuo, the orchestra consisted of a small number of instruments (cembalo, 3 flutes, 4 zinc, bass viola, etc.).

In the 17th century in Italy, two types of Oratorio develop in parallel - the "vulgar" (oratorio volgare), or (later) Italian, based on a freely chosen Italian poetic text, and the Latin (oratorio latino), based on a biblical Latin text. The "vulgar" or "folk" oratorio is more generally accessible, originating from the dramatized lauds. Already by the 16th century. narrative, lyrical, dialogized laudas developed. An important milestone in the way of dramatization of the lauds, connected with the form of their presentation, was the collection of dialogues by J. F. Anerio "The Harmonic Spiritual Theater" (1619). Actually, Anerio separates the narrative from the dialogue and instructs the chorus to lead it from the person of the Narrator (testo) or the Muse. In the dialogue itself, the voices are distributed according to the number of characters, each of which has a solo part, accompanied by an organ. The form of dialogue created by Anerio was gradually developed and enriched in relation to the plot basis; by the middle of the 17th century. it has become a "story" where the part of the Narrator takes on a recitative character. Such is the oratorio "John the Baptist" A. Stradella.

Alessandro Stradella

The Latin Oratorio combines the features of a liturgical drama with the polyphony of motets and madrigals. It reaches its peak in the work of G. Carissimi, the first classic of oratorio music. Carissimi created 15 oratorios on biblical stories, of which the most famous are "Ievfay", "Judgment of Solomon", "Belshazzar", "Jonah". Completely abandoning stage action, Carissimi replaces it with the introduction of the part of the Historian, which is performed by various soloists separately or together, in the form of a canonical duet. Great importance Carissimi lends to the choirs that actively participate in the action and end the Oratorio with an apotheosis.

Giacomo Carissimi - Baltazar oratorio

Later, a student of Carissimi A. Scarlatti, the head of the Neapolitan opera school, using the form of the aria da capo and the recitative secco, brought the Oratorio closer to the opera. By the beginning of the 18th century the Italian Oratorio is in decline and is almost completely supplanted by opera, but many composers continue to write works of this genre (A. Lotti, A. Caldara, L. Leo, N. Jommelli). Although Italy was the birthplace of the Oratorio, this genre reached its true heyday on the basis of other national cultures.

In the 18th century, during the Enlightenment, the dependence of oratorio forms on church ritual, which was still preserved in the Oratorios of some composers, was more and more overcome, and the Oratorio became a musically integral vocal-instrumental drama.

The classical type of oratorio created G. F. Handel in England in the 1930s and 1940s. 18th century He owns 32 oratorios, of which the most significant are "Saul" (1739), "Israel in Egypt" (1739), "Messiah" (1740), "Samson" (1741) and "Judas Maccabee" (1747) on biblical subjects. Handel also wrote Oratorios on evangelical (passions), mythological ("Hercules", 1745) and secular subjects ("Cheerfulness, thoughtfulness and moderation", based on the poem by J. Milton, 1740). Handel's oratorios are monumental heroic-epic works, bright dramatic frescoes that are not associated with a church cult and are close to opera. Their main actor- people. This determined the enormous role of the choirs - not only as a form of conveying the thoughts and feelings of the people, but also as an active force that directs musical and dramatic development. Handel uses all types of arias in the Oratorios, introduces an aria with a chorus; he refuses the part of the Narrator, partially transferring his functions to the choir. Recitative occupies an insignificant place in Handel's Oratorios.

Handel - "Samson"

In Germany, oratorio music, under the influence of some Italian forms, develops from the so-called "passion of the Lord", intended for performance in the temple. By the 16th century There were two types of "passions" - choral (choral passion), based on the traditions of Gregorian chant and psalmody, and motet (motett passion), in which all parties were performed by the choir. Gradually, the features of choral and motet "passions" are mixed, and "passions" arise in the form of an Oratorio. These are "Spiritual Stories" G. Schütz, the founder of the Oratorio in Germany, - passions for the 4 Gospels and the Oratorio "The Seven Words of Christ on the Cross", "The History of the Resurrection", "The Christmas Story".

Heinrich Schutz - "The Seven Words of Christ on the Cross"

From the purely dramatic conception of passions, Schutz gradually comes to the musical-psychological conception of the "Christmas Story". In the passions, only psalmodic recitation and a cappella choirs are presented, in the "Christmas Story" the evangelist's narration is interrupted by "interludes", in which a broad expression of dramatic feelings is given through the lips of various characters (angel, wise men, high priests, Herod). Their parties have features of individualization and are accompanied by various compositions of instruments. At the beginning of the 18th century Hamburg opera composers R. Kaiser, I. Mattheson, G. Telemann wrote passions on free poetic german lyrics B. G. Brockes.

Passions reach unsurpassed heights in creativity J. S. Bach. Of these, the Passion according to John (1722-23) and the Passion according to Matthew (1728-29) have been preserved. "Passion according to Luke" was erroneously attributed to Bach, which has been proven by many researchers. Since the main sphere of Bach's art is lyrical and philosophical, he treats the theme of passions as an ethical theme of self-sacrifice. Bach's passions are tragic stories of a suffering person, which combine various psychological plans - the evangelist's narration, the story of the events on behalf of the participants in the drama, the people's reaction to them, the author's lyrical digressions. Such versatility, polyphony of thinking, both in the broad sense (combination of various "plans" of the narrative), and in the narrow sense (the use of polyphonic forms) - feature creative method composer. Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" (1734) is essentially not an Oratorio, but a cycle of six spiritual cantatas.

Bach - Christmas Oratorio