In contrast to the virtuoso subtleties of many of his instrumental works, Georg Philipp Telemann's church music is often of a workaday cast, written in simple textures and for modest instrumental forces so that it could be used almost anywhere. The five Christmas-season works here display a feature that goes along with the technical accessibility: word-painting that is obvious and almost garish. Even a parishioner in the habit of snoozing through a Sunday church service would wake up at the stomping "Er übet Gewalt mit seinem Arm und zerstreuet, die hoffartig sind" (He shows force with his arm and scatters the proud) in Telemann's Meine Seele erhebt den Herrn, a German-language setting of the Magnificat. The rest of the works are all church cantatas, two for solo soprano and ensemble, and two for chorus and soloist or soloists, who get a lot of the word-painting devices. In the opening In deinem Wort und Sakrament (In thy word and sacrament), which is not too far from Bach's language, the diverse singers heard here seem to clash, but in the other pieces one sees why they were chosen. Swedish soprano Susanne Rydén has a fluttery ornamentation style that goes with the joyous laughter in her texts and with the peppy recorders that accompany her in several arias (the differences between the approaches of Telemann and Bach in church music are nowhere more clearly shown than in the former's more frequent use of the recorder, the household amateur's instrument). Her voice has a degree of pitch insecurity that may or may not annoy you -- sample track 6, the aria "Lauter Wonne, lauter Freude" (Sheer bliss, sheer joy), to find out. The other singers are likewise well matched to their material. The young Stuttgart groups solistenensemble stimmkunst and Ensemble 94 provide a rich, smooth sound that is nicely reduced down to the small dimensions of this music. These church works don't number among Telemann's masterpieces, but they are competently performed here for those with an interest in his sacred style.