Bach's Christmas Oratorio

The Philadelphia Orchestra brings Bach's Christmas Oratorio to Marian Anderson Hall at The Kimmel Center on Saturday, December 12. It's a big one: the full work, heard complete for the first time, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting. The performance runs about two hours and 45 minutes, which stretches to around three hours and ten minutes when you include the intermission.

To understand the scale, you have to look at how the Christmas Oratorio was built. It's not a single piece in the way we usually think of a concert; it's a collection of six cantatas Bach wrote between 1734 and 1735 to be performed across the churches of Leipzig, where he spent 27 years as cantor and music director of St. Thomas Church. Each cantata corresponds to a different feast of the Christmas season: the birth of Jesus, the appearance of the angels, the adoration of the shepherds, the naming of Jesus, the journey of the Magi, and their adoration. Hearing them all together in one sitting is a different experience than catching them as separate services over the course of the season.

It's a full-scale orchestral and choral production, and the lineup is deep. Joining the orchestra are four soloists—soprano Carolyn Sampson, countertenor Christophe Dumaux, tenor Jonghyun Park, and bass Andrzej Filonczyk—and the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir, directed by Joe Miller. The Marian Anderson Hall is known for acoustics that suit large-scale classical works, which is exactly what this is: a massive choral and orchestral undertaking that takes in the whole cycle at once.

If you're planning your evening, keep that runtime in mind—you're looking at over three hours from start to finish. The performance is on Saturday, December 12, at Marian Anderson Hall, The Kimmel Center, 300 S Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19102.