The Orchestra of St Cecilia plans to present the complete church cantatas of J.S. Bach; at the rate of six concerts a year, the project will take 10 years. "It would be a neglect of artistic duty not to attempt to scale this Everest," writes Lindsay Armstrong, manager of the orchestra.
The first concert of the projected series took place on Sunday in St Ann's Church, Dawson Street, and presented, with the co-operation of the Canzona Chamber Choir, the three cantatas that make up the first half of the Christmas Oratorio. Lacking the dramatic dimension of the Passions of St Matthew and St John, the Oratorio is on an almost domestic scale, as befits the Nativity story, and contains some of Bach's most relaxed and accessible music.
The story, composed in recitative, was sung with nicely judged emphasis by Robin Tritschler (tenor) and Philip O'Reilly (bass); both singers had arias as well, and acquitted themselves with dignity and sensitivity.
The part of the Mother of Christ was taken by the contralto, Cliona McDonough, who found all the requisite tenderness for the lullaby Schalf, mein Liebster (Sleep Now, my Dearest). The soprano, Mary Callan-Clake, and the bass joined in a duet between the soul and Christ, accompanied by oboes whose playing, here and elsewhere, was one of the pleasures of the performance.
The Canzona Chamber Choir sang the chorales with hymn-like security, but in the more complicated choruses, such as the first number (in which the orchestra is augmented by trumpets and timpani), more clarity would have been desirable.
The combined forces, under Blanaid Murphy, succeeded in communicating that sense of joy that the birth of Christ arouses in the believer.
