The Christmas Oratorio, with its six parts, has become dear to the hearts of countless music lovers all over the world. What sounds today as if it could never have been otherwise, in reality dates back in part to earlier Bach pieces that he retexted and adapted for the new purpose. The autograph ‘betrays’ Bach’s working methods in the very first chorus: first he underlaid the words of a version from the birthday cantata Tönet ihr Pauken only to cross them out and replace them with the famous Jau...