Choir of King's College Cambridge

Johann Sebastian Bach performed his Christmas Oratorio during the festive season 1734/5 in Leipzig. It does not conform to the usual meaning of the word Oratorio in that it is not a single self-contained work but is split into six sections or cantatas for six different services between Christmas Day and Epiphany, indeed the soloists and instrumentalists employed are varied thus enforcing the view that Bach did not expect all six to be performed in one evening concert. There is the usual blend of choruses and chorales for the choir with arias and recitatives for the soloists with the Tenor also allocated the role of Evangelist.

This recording, featuring the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, together with soloists closely associated with the works of the composer and of international renown, took place in July and December 1976 in King’s College Chapel with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under the direction of the Sir Philip Ledger, the then College musical director

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c1525-1594), took his name from the small town in the Sabine Hills about 25 miles from Rome where he was born. He was the eldest of four children of reasonably well-off parents and went to S. Maria Maggiore in Rome as a choirboy and even remained there after his voice broke. In 1544 he returned to Palestrina as organist and singing teacher but in 1551 he joined the town’s Bishop, who had been elected Pope, in Rome. A mass dedicated to his patron won him a place in the Papal Choir of the Sistine Chapel in 1554 but a year later his patron died and a successor, Paul IV, threw all the married men out of the choir and that included Palestrina. It was in 1561 that the appointment of maestro at S. Maria Maggiore, where he had been a choirboy, gave him the security he needed and his fame as a composer rose consistently thereafter. In all he wrote 104 settings of the mass and 375 motets, this collection, sung by the choir of King’s College in Cambridge, includes four of the most famous masses as well as six motets.