Singet, Jubilieret!

Candles, processions, bells, ancient carols and echoing choirs bring the magic of cathedral singing during the early 1600s in Germany to life!

The San Francisco Bach Choir continues its popular tradition of celebrating the Christmas season with a dramatic candlelight concert for multiple choirs and early instruments. This year’s program is drawn from the early North-German baroque works of Michael Prætorius, Dietrich Buxtehude and Jacob Handl, performed amid the gothic splendor of St. Dominic’s graceful arches and flying buttresses.

Musical Director, David Babbitt, has assembled an exciting program of festive seasonal music from the 17th century “colossal baroque” period that was the height of the polychoral golden age. With choirs singing back and forth to each other from different parts of the building, this performance format has become a specialty of the Bach Choir and is the centerpiece of all its concerts in the 1998-99 season. The choir will be joined for this concert by virtuoso violins as well as other instruments of the period as it recreates a time in musical history when composers first used the acoustics of the grand and spacious cathedrals to surround their audiences with an early version of stereophonic sound.