As he did with many of his re-recorded works for the Hanssler Bach Edition, Helmuth Rilling has made new friends, most recently in an admirable St John Passion from 1996 (6/97), a series of secular cantatas and a virtuosic, if uncontemplative Mass in B minor (5/00). Rilling’s second wind continues with Bach’s longest oratorio and a work that reveals this energetic director to be more fired up than ever. The choruses crackle with thrilling fervour and – dare one say it – a blistering attack and shine to notes which, alongside a forthright Gachinger Kantorei, carry the day persuasively on modern instruments. There will always be those for whom Rilling represents an inflexibility of phrasing and unyielding articulation in Bach, paradoxically more reminiscent of the least alluring elements of period performance than the ‘ebb and flow’ of mainstream consciousness. This recording doubtless reinforces the odd prejudice, though the habitually hard-edged orchestral textures of the Bach Collegium Stuttgart seem more mollifying and warm-hearted in movements such as the pastoral Sinfonia at the beginning of Part 2 and the divinely inspired ‘Schlafe, mein Liebster’ later in the same cantata (it must be said now, flawed by a tiresomely repeated pull-up before the second phrase).
One of the more unusual challenges of performing Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is to identify salient elements in the six sections which can interconnect the narrative as cohesively as possible – beyond chorale links – and restore momentum after long, self-contained arias: six cantatas, one after another, can make for a long evening. This task falls largely to the Evangelist, though neither he, nor the aria singers, are consistently employed as dramatis personae in either a Handelian manner or, indeed, as Bach conceived for the Passions.
James Taylor is a natural front-bench spokesman: articulate, discriminating, exacting if not emotionally candid. He also retains focus throughout the respective events of each tableau and gives clearly etched readings. Yet much of the credit must also go to the outstanding solo singing. Whatever one feels about Rilling’s overall vision, no one can deny that he is one of very few Bachians these days who repeatedly books fine Bach singers and realises their potential. This is evident in the incandescence of Sibylla Rubens and Hanno Muller-Brachmann in the pivotal duet of Part 3, ‘Herr, dein Mitleid’ and the scene-setting ‘Bereite dich, Zion’ which Ingeborg Danz sings with such exquisite and gentle poise. If her ‘Schlafe’ is a touch disappointing, then that reflects the weight of expectation which surrounds this central aria. If you prefer a mezzo to a countertenor, then only Anne-Sofie von Otter for Gardiner or Christa Ludwig for Richter can better her largely satisfying contribution. Muller-Brachmann is a fine bass soloist in ‘Grosser Herr’ and as movingly intimate as Michael George for Philip Pickett in the recitative with chorale, ‘Immanuel, O susses Wort’. Rubens is on really terrific form throughout and her ‘Nur in Wink’ in Part 6 is a model of outstanding Bach singing.
In a piece that so skilfully parodies the works he had written around 1735, there is always the sense that he was moving towards an increasingly conceptual vision of an oratorio, a statement for posterity much in the same vein as the Mass in B minor. Rilling’s strength is that he balances pragmatic concerns with a sense of dignified place in the greater scheme (especially well handled in Part 5 with the wise men’s arrival from the East) and the maturity of Bach’s comprehensive display of festive spirit leading to the inexorable brilliance of Part 6. There is, then, a spiritual containment which serves its purpose here – there’s absolutely no sentimental guff – and yet it perhaps trespasses into the clinical too readily. Rilling, as ever, raises one’s hopes and only intermittently fulfils them, but this is still a distinguished reading on many counts.'