Another bull’s-eye hit from John Butt’s Dunedin Consort. This newest liturgical reconstruction is of Bach’s first Christmas Vespers in Leipzig in December 1723, a rich service that included organ music, hymns, a cantata and Bach’s great Magnificat, in its early version with four little Christmas interpolations. There are interesting textual changes, the playing and singing are terrific, and Butt creates a very convincing congregational hymn with organ flourishes. But the highlight of the disc is the Christmas Cantata 63, brilliantly done with such expressive exuberance that it should have had (but certainly did not) the Leipzigers dancing in the aisles with joy at the arrival of their new Kapellmeister.
