Description
Product Description
Celestial Christmas is a richly textured musical tapestry that gracefully weaves together selections of sacred choral and instrumental music from the High Renaissance and Baroque eras. The recording journeys through moods of tenderness, solemnity, and joy, as expressed by Johann Sebastian Bach in the numerous choral selections from his Christmas oratorios and cantatas, including the beloved ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’ and ‘Sleepers, Awake!’ as well as the prayer for peace from the glorious ‘Mass in B Minor’. Bach is also the featured composer in the many joyful instrumental pieces for harpsichord, flute, and organ. Also included in the program are many exceptionally beautiful pieces, both choral and instrumental, by Claudio Monteverdi, Orlande de Lassus, Henry Purcell, William Lawes, Carlo Farina, Johann Pachelbel, and Georg Friedrich Händel.
About the Artist
Almost all of the pieces are performed by two of the world’s most highly regarded ensembles of Baroque choral and instrumental music: the Concentus musicus Wien under the direction of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and the Leonhardt-Consort directed by Gustav Leonhardt. Both groups are specialists in the music of Bach, and in consort music of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Their performances on Celestial Christmas deliver, from start to finish, magnificent and highly spirited renditions of some of the most precious gems in the Western classical repertoire.
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