In German-speaking countries, the Christmas Oratorio is the equivalent of a performance of Handel’s Messiah. City Choir Dunedin members tell Rebecca Fox about this year’s seasonal offering.
Musical director David Burchall said it was one of the classic Christmas pieces for a big orchestra and choir.
''We do the Messiah every other year so it's nice to have a significant performance.''
In German-speaking countries it is sung every year, it is an all-time favourite, and it rates among Bach's finest large-scale choral works.
''It's a great piece.''
The piece tells the Christmas story from ''every angle'', he said. It was written as a cycle of canatas unified by the Christmas story and performed over six days.
''All aspects from the jubilation of the birth to the realisation Christ is going to be an important figure, the King of the Jews, the Three Wise Men. The anxiety and dramatic events with that are vividly depicted in the music.''
It was a big endeavour for the choir, which last performed it eight years ago. The choir is keeping true to the piece by singing it in German, so the sound of the language which is integral to the piece is not lost. It will be translated so the audience understands what is going on.
''The music is complex. It brings together an orchestral accompaniment, four soloists in varying combinations.''
The choir had brought Auckland soloist Iain Tetley south to play Evangelist (the storyteller or narrator). He joins Dunedin singers Lois Johnson (soprano), Claire Barton (mezzo-soprano) and Robert Tucker (bass), who now lives in Blenheim.
''I was looking for a tenor who sings Bach as the people we've used before weren't available. It's good to bring new people to Dunedin. They have a different view of the music and bring their experience to the music as well.''
For Tetley, who has never sung in Dunedin before, it will be his first time singing the role of Evangelist, whose job is to play a significant part in telling ''the greatest story ever written''.
He felt it was important he makes the performance as ''meaningful to the listeners as possible and as emotionally charged as Bach intended''.
Tetley mostly performs with Bach Musica in the Auckland Town Hall and the Handel Consort and Quire at Auckland's Pitt St Methodist Church and has also performed as a tenor soloist with the Auckland Chamber choir Musica Sacra, which ended in 2013.
''I miss those opportunities to sing.''
One of his favourite experiences was singing as Zadok in Handel's Solomon across the stage from world-renowned countertenor Andreas Scholl in 2011.
''He was an amazing person to perform with, and it's been one of my proudest moments in performance.''
Tetley, who is ''half Kiwi'' and moved to New Zealand in 1997 to teach at Kings School in Remuera, loved the scale of production for big concerts such as Christmas Oratorio, which combine a big choir with symphony orchestra.
He finds it very satisfying to focus on exactly how every detail in the Recitative music should be sung.
''My main challenge is singing in German, as I expect it is for many singers. I did study German at school for a year, so I got the hang of pronunciation, but my vocabulary has become rather rusty and I don't think there was much Christmas-related German vocab in my studies.
''Every detail of the emotion of the story has to be made very clear, but without musically overdoing it.''
All up there are 105 people involved, including the 20 members of the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra.
For choir president Deborah Don, Christmas Oratorio is her favourite piece.
''It is Bach at his best and a truly joyous, thrilling uplifting work to celebrate the joy of life.''
For her it was right up there with the choir's highlight performance of the year - the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra premiering Dunedin composer Anthony Ritchie's Gallipoli to the Somme at the Dunedin Festival of the Arts.
''Anthony's composition is compelling and such a privileged to perform. The July concert of two classical works was fantastic, but I predict that the forthcoming Christmas Oratorio will, for me, be right up there with Gallipoli.''
It is experiences like these that draw Mrs Dons to travel across the region each week for rehearsals.
When she and her husband decided to move to Millers Flat, a 90-minute drive from Dunedin, maintaining her membership of the choir was a priority.
''I thoroughly enjoy living in a rural environment, but my love of singing, my respect and close friendships with many members of the choir, my sheer pleasure with the joyous music we sing - mostly from a classical repertoire - will not be forgone readily.
''Maintaining my membership, attending rehearsals and performances and assisting the committee where I can, was not a compromise I was prepared to make when my husband and I decided to sell our house in Dunedin and live in Millers Flat permanently.''
With the choir's administration entirely voluntary, it meant a lot of work for its committee, completing the programme, ticket arrangements, stage seating, venue management and travel and accommodation issues.
To see
City Choir Dunedin, Christmas Oratorio, Dunedin Town Hall, tomorrow 7.30pm.
