Search - Klaus Hager, Johann Sebastian Bach, René Jacobs :: Christmas Oratorio (Spec)

As moving as you will get.

David Greco | 01/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"To the reviewer below.....wake up to yourself. It's your sound system that's faulty, not this recording. Hillarious that you would put the Naxos recording above this one. The orchestral playing is superlative by the ever brilliant Academie Alte Musik Berlin, lead by Jacobs, a master in his field...and the soloists are the finest in the business. This recording in DIVINE!!!!"

Fresh

Person | hmm | 09/30/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Beware what the earlier reviewer said and steer well clear of any naxos recordings of this work. Bach interpretation is moving in a new and fresh direction, orchestras are sounding less full, less tight, less heavy - more fresh, more real, more alive. We are just starting to understand the Baroque in its own context. See the music that came before it to understand that Baroque performance surely had a sense of freedom and a sense of play about it. The heavy, thick-sounding dead-solid and straight performance of Bach is a cross polination of the foolish concept of 'new objectivity' in orchestral conducting which may apply, if you wish, to modern works, but is certainly not what the Baroque was about. This recording is worth every cent and is magnificent."

Highly Overrated, Mannered Performance

Kostas Sarantidis | Portland, ME United States | 12/21/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"There are certain musicians in the Historically-Informed-Performance community who seem to get immediate, self-replicating 5-star ratings in these Amazon reviews. Rene Jacobs is perhaps the most visible example of this phenomenon. Just look at his perverse Mozart-opera recordings and the multitude of international awards they have garnered! This Christmas Oratorio recording is typical. He has learned well from his master, Nikolaus Harnoncourt - but unfortunately his lessons have been gained not from the Harnoncourt of the 70's who gave us those incredible pioneering recordings on Telefunken (Teldec), but rather the Harnoncourt of the last two decades, with perversity piled upon perversity, practically obliterating the moments of genius that survive from those earlier days. Rene Jacobs shone bright as an alto twenty years ago. Just listen to his alto in the Leonhardt recording of the St. Matthew Passion and you will know what truly great Bach singing is all about, despite some small technical imperfections.



As is typical with Jacobs as conductor, his Christmas Oratorio is a highly mannered performance. Tempos are often absurdly slow, and sometimes very fast. But regardless of tempo, his performance is sticky and rarely achieves the freedom that other conductors have brought to their historically-informed recordings. It's quite an achievement for any historically-informed, period-instrument performance to be boring, yet that's what happens with this Jacobs recording, with its abundant artificial pauses and unnecessary attempts at emphasis. I always get the sense when listening to a Jacobs recording that he is saying to us, "Look how good I am at ornamenting and creating unique sound balances." He loves the lute, and in this recording the lute becomes his primary continuo instrument, along with a very heavy bass. You'll have to listen hard to hear the organ, which clearly was Bach's primary continuo instrument in this work. The presence of the lute in this recording is only one of many perversities, on par with the over-busy pianoforte intrusions in his Mozart-opera recordings. I love the sound of the lute, but please don't tell me that this is historically-informed practice.



Naturally, the orchestra is superb and the solo instruments are for the most part very fine. There is some fine choral singing, when Jacobs' perverse tempos and accents don't get in the way. I actually like the chorales in this recording. They are slower than you usually hear in historically-informed recordings, but they are beautiful in the quiet simplicity that Jacobs achieves. But please listen to the opening chorus, with its jumpy accents. It ends up lumbering along rather than dancing with joy, regardless of the fast tempo. The timpani thunder and crash at every opportunity, far beyond what you'll hear in any other historically-informed performance. Even within the community of historically-informed performance practice, the range of what is acceptable and what is not cannot be so wide that something like this should be welcomed as doing justice to the score. By contrast, the sinfonia that opens the second cantata also lumbers along, but at a funereal tempo. Like latter-day Harnoncourt, perversity piles on perversity.



The solo singers are variable. The most famous of them, Andreas Scholl, sounds emotionally uninvolved in his arias, and these arias really constitute the spiritual heart of this great work. The lullaby in the second cantata is particularly disappointing. Scholl clearly cannot sustain a solid line at Jacobs' slow tempo and the result, for listener and singer, is quite uncomfortable. The other three soloists are capable, but are out-sung by singers in other recordings.



The best recording that I know of this work is the Herreweghe recording on Virgin. Christmas Oratorio (Weihnachtsoratorium)"