"The lyrical choruses are full of artistic beauty and swing. The cantata character is more conspicuous here than in the first three sections, and the specially Christmas feeling resides more in the general tone of the music than in the chorales." Bitter, in his life of Bach, gives the following interesting sketch of the origin of some of the numbers contained in the work:-- "In some parts of this music Bach borrowed from former compositions of his own, especially from a 'Drama per Musica,' dedicated to the Queen of Poland, and a drama entitled 'The Choice of Hercules,' composed in 1733 for a Saxon prince. The old hymn-tune, 'O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,' composed A.D. 1600 (by Hans Geo. Hassler to a secular tune), and used by Bach five times to different words in the 'Matthaeus-Passion,' is again used in this oratorio to the words of Paul Gerhard's Advent hymn, 'Wie soll ich dich empfangen,' and to the hymn of triumph, 'Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen,' at the end of the last part. As this tune was familiar to the hearers in connection with a hymn for Passion Week, its adaptation to Advent and Christmas hymns seems intended to express a presentiment at the time of Christ's birth of his future sufferings. The same tune is now used in the German Church to a number of different hymns, especially to 'Herzlich thut mich verlangen' and 'Befiehl du deine Wege,' and is in some tune-books called by one or other of these names. 'Befiehl du deine Wege' is one of the hymns to which Bach has set it in the 'Matthaeus-Passion.' In the first part of the oratorio we find two verses of Luther's Christmas hymn, 'Gelobet seist du Jesu Christ;' first, the verse beginning 'Er ist auf Erden kommen arm,' to the tune Luther composed for it, and the verse 'Ach, mein herzliebes Jesulein,' to the tune (also of Luther's composition), 'Von Himmel hoch da komm ich her.' This last-mentioned tune is also used twice in the second part, to the words 'Schaut hin, dort liegt im finstern Stalle,' and 'Wir singen dir in deinem Heer,' arranged differently each time. The chorales, 'Jesus, richte mein Beginnen,' in the fourth part, and 'Dein Glanz all Finsterniss verzehrt,' in the fifth part, are probably Bach's own compositions."