Bach: Christmas Oratorio Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Bach: Christmas Oratorio Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 12, 2013

Years ago I sent out a hilarious Christmas card that had a reproduction of a 1950s image of a housewife on the front— replete with beautiful dress, pearls and (of course) an apron—screaming in horror about some unseen tragedy like waxy yellow buildup. When you opened it up, the card said “No more Christmas music!”, which may be a sentiment many of you share as you’re inundated with endless versions of “White Christmas” or even this year’s sensation, Pentatonix’s a cappella rendition of “The Little Drummer Boy”. For those of you wanting to still aurally celebrate the season without driving yourself crazy, there is an alternative: Johann Sebastian Bach’s elegant and moving Weihnachtsoratorium, otherwise known as the Christmas Oratorio.

Philippe Herreweghe is one of the most renowned Bach conductors working today, and he leads his fabulous Collegium Vocale Gent Choir and Orchestra through a thrilling performance of Bach’s piece, which many classical musical aficionados will know is actually cobbled together from six cantatas Bach wrote separately. The music is often stately but spirited, and the vocal lines in the choral numbers utilize both blocks of Bach’s dense harmonies as well as antiphonal weavings that feature the interplay of several separate melodic lines running simultaneously. Collegium Vocale Gent’s textures are beautifully transparent and well realized throughout the long running time of the oratorio.

Bach: Christmas Oratorio Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Johann Sebastian Bach: Christmas Oratorio is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of EuroArts with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This concert was captured live on December 12, 2012 at the Salle Henry Le Boeuf in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Despite that fancy sounding name, the surroundings are rather minimal, and there isn't a lot of visual pomp and circumstance to this presentation. While the image is sharp and generally precise (absent some passing combing artifacts), the lack of color in quite notable. The choir and instrumentalists are all clad in black, meaning flesh tones are about the only relief the eye gets from an otherwise monochromatic looking presentation.

Bach: Christmas Oratorio Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Perhaps surprisingly, I ended up preferring the LPCM 2.0 mix on this Blu-ray over the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. Perhaps because of hall acoustics, which may be more faithfully rendered in the 5.1 mix, there was a noticeably more muddled sound, especially in the mid- and upper ranges. The 2.0 track by comparison offered better clarity though of course without the increased separation that 5.1 mix affords. Both of the tracks offer excellent fidelity, presenting both vocalists and orchestra accurately and with excellent dynamic range.

Bach: Christmas Oratorio Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Bach: Christmas Oratorio Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you've never heard Bach's stunning Christmas Oratorio, this fantastic performance is a great way to start. The piece is long (close to two and a half hours), so you may want to split this into "bite sized" chunks, as Bach originally intended. This Blu-ray features very good video and audio, and the performance itself is top rate. Recommended.