odes."

The first and second parts close with chorales, but in the third the
opening chorus is repeated at the close.

"Part IV. has least of the character of church festival music. The
Biblical matter consists of a single verse from the Gospel of Saint
Luke, ii. 21, which relates the circumcision and naming of Jesus. Not
much material could be worked out of this, and Bach has almost
entirely set aside all adjuncts from the liturgy. No Christmas hymn,
indeed no true chorale, is introduced in it.... This section,
therefore, bears more strongly the stamp merely of a religious
composition; it is full of grace and sweetness, and can only have
derived its full significance for congregational use from its position
in context with the rest of the work."

Parts V. and VI., devoted to the history of the three kings, are in no
respect inferior to the first three.

"The lyrical choruses are full of artistic beauty and swing. The
cantata character is more conspicuous here than in the first three
sections, and the specially Christmas feeling resides more in the
general tone of the music than in the chorales."

Bitter, in his life of Bach, gives the following interesting sketch of
the origin of some of the numbers contained in the work:--

"In some parts of this music Bach borrowed from former compositions of
his own, especially from a 'Drama per Musica,' dedicated to the Queen
of Poland, and a drama entitled 'The Choice of Hercules,' composed in
1733 for a Saxon prince. The old hymn-tune, 'O Haupt voll Blut und
Wunden,' composed A.D. 1600 (by Hans Geo. Hassler to a secular tune),
and used by Bach five times to different words in the
'Matthaeus-Passion,' is again used in this oratorio to the words of Paul
Gerhard's Advent hymn, 'Wie soll ich dich empfangen,' and to the hymn
of triumph, 'Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen,' at the end of the last part.
As this tune was familiar to the hearers in connection with a hymn for
Passion Week, its adaptation to Advent and Christmas hymns seems
intended to express a presentiment at the time of Christ's birth of his
future sufferings. The same tune is now used in the German Church to a
number of different hymns, especially to 'Herzlich thut mich verlangen'
and 'Befiehl du deine Wege,' and is in some tune-books called by one or
other of these names. 'Befiehl du deine Wege' is one of the hymns to
which Bach has set it in the 'Matthaeus-