Handel and Haydn goes back to Bach
Chorusmaster John Finney.I don't know why this should be so, but somehow it's always a surprise to encounter the sheer joy dancing through so much of the sacred music of Johann Sebastian Bach.The oboes d'amore all but giggle and jig, for instance, through much of the great master's Christmas Oratorio, a suite of six cantatas (one for each feast day) written for the holiday season of 1734 (and divvied up, or…