The blaze of glory launching Bach's Christmas Oratorio is a High Baroque spine-tingler. On Sunday, signing off Bach Musica's season for the year, Rita Paczian and her musicians gave it a full and spectacular illumination.
The Town Hall was sparsely populated for this group's October presentation of Mendelssohn's St Paul, but Bach's seasonal alternative to the traditional Messiah drew the crowds.
Paczian has a directness of approach that suits this work well. The great choruses, agleam with the brilliant trumpet play of Huw Dann and his colleagues, lent an air of celebration. Each of the chorales that run through the score was given its own individuality.
Where some might have taken time out for reflection, pausing after each phrase, Paczian drove the music forward, tightening dramatic momentum.
This conductor knows how to underline Bach's ingenuity; early on, baritone Kieran Rayner was an impressive narrator between fragments of chorale from the sopranos, set against a backdrop of wafting double reeds.
