This week on Learning to Listen, we explore music that is large scale (cantatas, oratorios, etc.) but isn't confined to Handel's Messiah. One could categorize these selections as "Christmas music with a difference"; these works ring in the holidays in grand fashion.
Program Playlist
Bach, JS: BWV 248 — Jauchzet frohlocket
Bach Collegium, Stuttgart, Helmuth Rilling
Camille Saint-Saens Christmas Oratorio - No. 1 - Prelude
Felix Mendelssohn: Vom Himmel Hoch - No. 1 Chorus
The Dresden Philharmonic and Choir
Gerald Finzi: from Dies Natalis - III. The Rapture
John Mark Ainsley, tenor
The Croydon Orchestra/Matthew Best
Rihards Dubra: from Our Lord's Nativity 'Rejoice Daughter of Zion'
The New York Latvian Chamber Choir, New Chamber orchestra of Riga
Daniel Pinkham: from Christmas Cantata - III: Gloria in excelsis Deo
The Washington Chorus (with brass) / Robert Schafer
Gian-Carlo Menotti - from Amahl and the Night Visitors: 'Have you seen a child?' and 'Shepherds, shepherdesses'
The Royal Opera House and Sadler's Wells Theatre
John Rutter: from When Icicles Hang - Good Ale
The Cambridge Singers and City of London Sinfonia/John Rutter
Biber: from The Mystery Sonatas - The Nativity
John Holloway, violin, Tragicomedia
Honnegger: A Christmas Cantata III. Laudete Dominum omnes gentes
The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir / Vladimir Jurowski
From Handel's Messiah: 'For Unto Us a Child is Born'
The Roches
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