"Discussions of the Christmas Oratorio always stress that Bach subsumed other compositions into it, ones he had not written for church purposes at all but for highly secular occasions - above all the homage cantatas to the new king and elector Augustus III.  Schweitzer believed that Bach created the Christmas Oratorio only 'so that the most beautiful pieces from the "Wahl des Hercules" ["Choice of Hercules"] and homage cantata '"Tonet, ihr Pauken" ["Sound, Ye Drums"] would not go to waste.'  A woman who for many years exercised considerable power at the Ministry of Culture in the defunct government of East Germany denied any religiosity whatsoever to the work.  She characterized it as a 'high statement of human self-awareness' and averred that with it Bach had proved yet again that he was 'a great figure of the German Enlightenment.'  It was probably the tragedy of her life that she could not make him into an out-and-out atheist."

Klaus Eidam
The True Life of Johann Sebastian Bach

Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists.  Part 1.  Sing along:

Rejoice, exult! glorify the days,
Praise what the All Highest the day has done!
Set aside fear, banish lamentation,
Strike up a song full of joy and mirth!
  Serve the All Highest with glorious choirs!
  Let us worship the name of the Lord!



Parts two, three and four.

Parts five through nine.