For several centuries Handel’s Messiah has reigned supreme. Various other contenders have come along as the big choral work for Christmas, but few are as ambitious in scale or as packed with colour and incident as James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio.
The premiere of this work was scheduled by the London Philharmonic Orchestra for 2020, but the pandemic intervened and it was not until December last year that the orchestra was able to give its first performance. It is a live recording of that concert that appears here.
MacMillan has assembled the words from a variety of sources, including extracts from the Bible, Latin liturgical texts and poems by Robert Southwell, John Donne and John Milton. As in Bach’s Passions, this allows for a mix of narrative and reflection, with wide contrasts of mood.
By turns ecstatic and rapt, the music presents MacMillan both as a master of boldly theatrical orchestral showpieces and as the more private Catholic composer of devotional music. The narrative sections for chorus sometimes feel overblown (Bach’s Evangelist makes a more neutral narrator), but the orchestration is highly inventive, solo violin or celesta adding a dusting of Christmas magic. The otherworldly “O magnum mysterium” lifts the chorus to a higher plane.
In this performance, soprano Lucy Crowe and baritone Roderick Williams are the excellent soloists and Mark Elder conducts the London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra. A vivid recording captures MacMillan’s seasonal spectacular in its full glory.
★★★★☆
‘MacMillan: Christmas Oratorio’ is released by LPO
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