Glover leads MOB in a stylish and sensitive “Christmas Oratorio”

It’s beginning to look a lot like . . . well, Thanksgiving.

While it may be a bit early yet for Yuletide programs, the rare opportunity to hear Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, must be seized, regardless of the calendar. And the stylish and idiomatic performance by Music of the Baroque, led by Dame Jane Glover Monday night at Symphony Center, provided a nearly ideal rendering of this rich and fascinating work.

Bach’s sprawling oratorio is a collection of six separate cantatas, each composed to be performed on specific feast days from Christmas to Epiphany (Jan. 6). Bach famously drew on previous secular works for much of the oratorio’s raw material, yet the retooled music pairs seamlessly with the new Nativity text. As in his Passions, a narrator relates the progress of the Christmas scenario while the four soloists and chorus comment and amplify on the greater spiritual import for the congregation/audience.

The music is not quite as celebrated nor as dramatic as that in Bach’s Passions and the Mass in B minor. Yet there is no sense of ennui or boredom due to the variety of Bach’s musical invention. The festive and joyful moments are balanced skillfully with the inward and ruminative throughout.

The Christmas Oratorio has long been a Glover party piece with previous MOB performances in 2010, 2014 and 2018.

At nearly three hours (with one intermission), the Christmas Oratorio can be a haul, even for Bach fans and Baroque aficionados. But each of the six cantatas seemed to fly by Monday night as one wondered anew at the variety and imagination of Bach’s resourcefulness.

Glover’s masterful pacing kept things moving with fleet tempos that never seemed rushed, the recitatives leading naturally into the slower arias and back again with ease and a sense of inevitability. Her balancing was equally skillful throughout the oratorio’s 64 individual movements—trumpets rang out brilliantly in the festive chorales while obbligato instrumentalists discreetly yet expressively supported the soloists in their arias. The conductor’s only misstep was having the four soloists sing along with the chorus in the final chorale, a bit of anachronistic theatricality that slightly cheapened the performance’s closing moments.

The performance benefited from a fine quartet of soloists.
Gwylim Bowen proved ideal casting, his high, flexible tenor well suited to the narrative role of the Evangelist. Bowen’s clear articulation and piping tone kept the performance on track and he securely handled the challenges of the rapid-fire “Frohe Hirten eilt” as well as the daunting coloratura of “Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben.” Though tiring a bit at the end of the long evening, Bowen managed to bring fire and intensity to the oratorio’s final aria, “Nun mogt ihr stolzen Feinde schrecken.”

Bass-baritone Michael Sumuel anchored the low end superbly with his authoritative and well-focused bass, and contrasted winningly with soprano Yulia van Doren in their duets. Van Doren had fewer opportunities tan her colleagues but conveyed the offbeat charm of the echo aria (“Flosst, mein Heiland, flosst dein Namen”).

At times in the first half, Emily Fons’ light voice faded away at quieter dynamics, and one wanted greater firmness and depth to her low notes. But the gifted mezzo-soprano sang with sensitive expression to her spotlight moments, as in the lullaby, “Schlafe, meine Liebster” and, provided death of feeling in “Schliesse, mein Herze.”

Well prepared by Andrew Megill, the MOB chorus sang with characteristic polish and well-blended expression.

The orchestra was equally responsive Monday night not least in the numerous obbligato solos, sensitively assayed by concertmaster Gina DiBello, flutist Mary Stolper, and oboist Anne Bach. Even by her usual standard, Barbara Butler delivered spirited and spectacular trumpet playing throughout the evening.