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This is a rare chance to hear all six parts of the original Christmas hit performed over two nights.

There could be no better way to end the year in which the OAE celebrates the 40th anniversary of its formation in 1986 than with a work that has been a mainstay.

The Christmas Oratorio was first performed as six cantatas, each focusing on a different aspect of the Christmas story, across six feast days in different churches around Leipzig.

Our first evening opens with the bells ringing out for Christmas Day then cuts to the angels’ encouragement to the shepherds that there’s no need to be afraid.

The Evangelist’s narration interweaves with dramatic choruses, chorales, and reflective arias from the cast of soloists.

Václav Luks, the founder of Prague’s Collegium 1704, returns to the OAE following critically acclaimed collaborations in Bach’s Mass in B Minor at the Southbank Centre and in the pit at Glyndebourne Opera.

Luks completes the programme with a Credo from a mass by fellow Czech Jan Dismas Zelenka. Bach almost certainly knew Zelenka and held his music in high regard for its inventive harmony and what Luks describes as its ‘extraordinary power’.