Schütz: Christmas Vespers / McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort and Players

Heinrich Schütz's Christmas Story, besides being a historical milestone, has always been one of 17th-century music's crowd-pleasers--the former because it's the ancestor of Christmas oratorios by Bach, Charpentier, and even Berlioz; the latter because it presents engaging depictions of the characters in the Nativity story with a cornucopia of colorful instruments (piping recorders for the shepherds, a galumphing bassoon (representing the gait of the camels?) for the three wise men, regally blaring cornets for King Herod, and pompous trombones for his priests). As you might expect, there are a number of fine recordings of this proto-oratorio, from the graceful and somewhat delicate rendition of René Jacobs to the high-energy performance of Robert King. As usual, Paul McCreesh goes where no one has gone before, showing us the context for which Schütz probably wrote the work in the first place: a Christmas Day Vespers service at the court in Dresden where the composer was chapel master. McCreesh's reconstruction includes thrilling performances of two Christmas hymns (with tunes by Luther himself), organ music by Scheidt, a psalm from Schütz's collection Psalmen Davids, a delicate motet for four soloists, and (in an electrifying reading) a lavish multiple-choir Magnificat. Alongside all these, McCreesh's rendition of the Christmas Story seems--well, not lackluster, exactly (it's very skillfully done, and Susan Hemington Jones as the Angel is a particular treat), but a bit less inspired than the rest of the program. So if that one work is all you care about, you may want to consider the Jacobs or King versions; otherwise, this disc won't disappoint--it's as exciting a Christmas record as you'll find. --Matthew Westphal