Since the Middle Ages, the Christian world has performed the story of Jesus' birth in some dramatized and musical form up until Christmas. One of the most well-known today is Bach's Christmas Oratorio, which he wrote in 1734 when he was 50 years old. 

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Bach's Christmas Oratorio

Aalborg Central Waterfront

One of the fixed traditions of Christmas is Copenhagen Phil's performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio . So forget gift shopping and Christmas hustle and bustle for a few hours and instead follow Copenhagen Phil and the Copenhagen Boys' Choir to Bach's wonderful Christmas world.

Christmas is a busy time for everyone – even for a composer like Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1730s. He is not only responsible for all music in Leipzig's churches and for the teaching of the students at the affiliated school – he also has to write new music for the many holidays. And in the midst of an everyday life that would have given most people stress in a single week, Bach writes some of the greatest masterpieces of Western civilization.

The Christmas Oratorio

Church of Our Lady

The biblical episode is well known: during a banquet, Princess Salome dances for Herod and he promises her anything in return; the young woman asks for and obtains the head of John the Baptist. In 1891, Oscar Wilde turned the story into a drama, enriched with new elements, which enjoyed great success in Germany and consolidated the image of Salome as a combination of innocence and perversion. Richard Strauss, in search of a subject for a new opera, did not let it slip away and set Wilde’s text (translated into German) to music as it stood, with only minor changes.

Emanuel Tomljenovic

Events

Upcoming events

6 - 17 Apr, 2027

Salome · Teatro Regio Torino

Past events

Dec 12, 2024

Bach's Christmas Oratorio · Aalborg Symfoniorkester

Dec 16, 2023

The Christmas Oratorio · Copenhagen Phil

Future and recently performed repertoire

Quarto giudeo in Salome by Strauss

Teatro Regio Torino

About

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