Music in Church
How better to spend the Nativity Octave than by singing Bach’s Christmas Oratorio? Here is an excerpt from an interview with Cologne’s Domradio on the occasion of the Cappella Lacensis‘s performance tonight in the abbey church of Maria Laach. ‘Few people are indifferent to music as an expression of adoration and of worship. I think music can often be a door-opener, an awakener. In music we hear a call from beyond drawing forth from us an echo at once familiar and astonishing. Church musicians must be conscious that their contribution to the liturgy will often be as important as, sometimes more important than, a sermon. Therefore it must be made prayerfully. There is no room for mediocrity. The Christmas Oratorio is wonderful – we might call it heavenly! At the same time it is earthbound and unsentimental. That belongs to the mystery of Bach.’
