Perhaps because Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel were his contemporaries, Telemann’s Christmas music is pretty much neglected. So almost no one knows this remarkable Christmas oratorio. Composed in 1759, Telemann’s music presents a libretto by poet Karl Wilhelm Ramler (1725-1798). To an extent uncommon in Christmas texts set to music, Der Hirten an der Krippe zu Bethlehem stresses the eschatological fulfillment promised by the birth of the baby in Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph aren’t mentioned, nor are the usual trappings of conventional manger tableaux. Rather — using imagery from the Old Testament and the book of Revelation which promises the redemption and transformation of the whole earth when…
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Georg Philipp Telemann