The Works：Christmas Special, Bach scholar & conductor Helmuth Rilling's Bach "Christmas Oratorio",

Welcome, once again to a special joint Christmas edition of The Works and 藝坊星期天. This is the time of year when we usually invite guests to the studio to help us celebrate Christmas with some festive tunes. And this year’s no exception. In part two, an English carol and a seasonal song from the 21-member Wells Cathedral Choralia.
But first, written almost 300 years ago, the Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” was always intended to be performed in church at Christmas. A six part work, telling the Christ story from birth to Epiphany, it was written to be first performed on the six feast days of Christmas in the winter of 1734. To celebrate Bach’s 330th birthday, acclaimed conductor and Bach scholar, Helmuth Rilling recently conducted the oratorio with five German soloists, the SingFest Choral Academy, and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts Choir and Symphony Orchestra. We caught up with the maestro between his rehearsals.
The 21 voices of the Wells Cathedral School Choralia are selected from students at the Wells Cathedral School. The group was voted among the best three choirs in a recent international singing competition. The full choralia came to our studio to sing us John Rutter's What Sweeter Music, Winter Wonderland and Jingle Bells.