After Richard Wetz’s Requiem, a sacred composition regarded as the summit of his oeuvre, we are now releasing his Christmas Oratorio to Old German Poems, which occupied him for two years (1927-29). Wetz was a symphonist through and through, and his oratorio ranks as his most extensive choral symphonic work. The premiere of the Christmas Oratorio was conducted by the composer himself on 3 December 1929 in Erfurt’s Predigerkirche. During the following years the work was presented in various German cities with some regularity, but after 1945 it quickly vanished from performance programs. We are now presenting to the cpo listening audience the live recording of its new performance in Erfurt in 2010 – on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the composer’s death. Wetz’s Christmas Oratorio not only demonstrates his contrapuntal mastery but also manifests a dramaturgically skillful free treatment of polyphony operating with the intention of enlisting the polyphonic work in the service of the music. The double fugue at the end of the work is one of the most impressive discoveries in Wetz. Like the Requiem, the Christmas Oratorio was a work designed for the concert hall and not as music for religious services. As the title already indicates, the setting is based on sacred poems from earlier German literature – and thus is more of a personal testimony than liturgical music.