November 5, 2009: We wish you a non-standard Christmas

Now that the Christmas season begins after Halloween (at least as far as television advertising is concerned), I have begun my annual search for Christmas concerts that depart from the usual beaten path.  Two of these events take place very soon after Thanksgiving Day (the "old school" initiation of the Christmas season).  One initiates the Holidays with the Symphony series of programs at Davies Symphony Hall, and the other is a fortuitous programming decision on the part of San Francisco Performances.

The Davies event is the performance of the Christmas Oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach under the baton of Ragnar Bohlin, Director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus.  The soloists will be soprano Malin Christensson, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, tenor Lothar Odinius, and baritone Anders Larsson.  As the Wikipedia entry makes clear, this work was not intended to be performed in its entirety on a single occasion:

The oratorio is in six parts, each part being intended for performance on one of the major feast days of the Christmas period. In modern performance, the piece is generally either presented as a whole, or split into two equal sections. The total running time for the entire work is nearly three hours. In a similar fashion to Bach's other oratorios, a tenor Evangelist narrates the story.

The first part (for Christmas Day) describes the Birth of Jesus, the second (for December 26) the annunciation to the shepherds, the third (for December 27) the adoration of the shepherds, the fourth (for New Year's Day) the circumcision and naming of Jesus, the fifth (for the first Sunday after New Year) the journey of the Magi, and the sixth (for Epiphany) the adoration of the Magi.

Indeed, if one wanted to be true to the spirit of the time, one of the cantatas (BWV 36, 61, or 62) for the first Sunday in Advent, which happens to be the date of the final Symphony performance, would have been more appropriate.  However, the six parts of the oratorio actually work quite well together in terms of a "narrative arc" of reflections on the Nativity;  and, as far as I am concerned, this music never seems to receive enough good concert performances.  So this is the perfect way to get the Holiday Spirit in gear.  There will be three performances, November 27 and 28 (Friday and Saturday) at 8 PM and November 29 (that First Sunday in Advent) at 2 PM;  further details can be found on the Web page for this event at the Symphony's Web site.

The San Francisco Performances event is a recital by Anonymous 4 entitled The Cherry Tree:  Songs, Carols and Ballads for Christmas.  Anonymous 4 is the four-woman a capella group with a name only a musicologist consumed by the Middle Ages could love, but for this event their repertoire ventures beyond the Medieval period.  According to the Web page for the event, the program will feature different settings of the Nativity narrative from the 15th through 17th centuries;  and, according to the press release, the music will come from both England and America.  This is thus likely to be a delightful "music history without tears" event, through which we can experience the evolution of music for unaccompanied voices over a two century period.  This recital will take place on one night only, December 3 at 8 PM in Herbst Theatre.

Nowel syng we bothe al and som!