Within a relatively short publishing career, from 1605 to his death in 1621, Praetorius disseminated through print an astonishingly rich array of music for Lutheran liturgical use, focusing particularly on settings of traditional melodies (especially chorales). Writing for double choir predominates in the early volumes of his monumental series Musæ Sioniæ, which includes (in the second volume, 1607) the settings of In dulci jubilo and Puer natus in Bethlehem. Both represent the prominence of macaronic texts—mixing elements in Latin and the vernacular—in the Christmas repertory of the middle ages and beyond, and more generally the juxtaposition of Latin and German which was quite common practice in Lutheran churches. The opening stanza of In dulci jubilo (which is all that Praetorius sets in this version) switches constantly between Latin and German. The resplendent eight-voice textures and chiming dialogues between the two choirs produce vivid evocations of communal rejoicing in In dulci jubilo, and the whole work is an exuberant exercise in reworking and varying the melodic phrases of the traditional melody.

from notes by Owen Rees © 2020