CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
Oratorio de Noël, Christmas oratorio, Op. 12
JAKUB JAN RYBA
Missa pastoralis bohemica (Czech Christmas Mass “Hej, mistře!”)
Pavla Radostová soprano, Markéta Cukrová mezzo-soprano, Daniela Čermáková alto, Tomáš Lajtkep tenor, Jaromír Nosek bass
Onřej Bernovský organ
Ars Brunensis, choir director Dan Kalousek
Filharmonie Brno, conductor Vojtěch Spurný
Jakub Jan Ryba (1765–1815) is certainly the most important figure among the Czech cantors composing music in the late 18th century. From 1788, he linked his life permanently with the office of the cantor in Rožmitál pod Třemšínem. He wrote about 1,500 works, of which the most famous is entitled (originally in Latin) A Festive Mass Dedicated to the Celebration of the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Set to Music in the Czech Language, or the Czech Christmas Mass in short. He composed it in 1796 on his own text after the Gospel of Luke. Our performance uses the critical edition by Vojtěch Spurný, based on the earliest preserved copy.
A leading figure of French music, Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) wrote the first six parts of his Oratorio de Noël over a few days in December 1858, aged 23. He composed this piece for five soloists, choir, organ, strings and harp, setting to music texts from the Vulgate and Catholic liturgy. The work’s subtitle, Dans le style de Séb. Bach, betrays his inspiration from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. We will hear Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de Noël 100 years to the day after the composer’s death.
