I finally broke down and got the Rene Jacobs recording of the Christmas Oratorio; it’s been winking at me for a while. It marks my fourth Christmas Oratorio recording–and I have two that I really cherish (Gardiner/English Baroque, and Herreweghe.) But I love Jacobs’s style as a conductor, and this recording also features Andreas Scholl as the alto.
Turns out that it’s splendid. It’s a deluxe set with a fancy booklet and lots of great illustrations. I’ve become convinced that Harmonia Mundi is the classiest recording company around these days–one of the few to give me some fleeting hope that ‘classical’ recordings will not fade from the face of the earth.
If you don’t know the Christmas Oratorio, this would make a great introduction. What a glorious piece of music it is, recycled from the secular cantatas though it may be.