In 2000 the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, under the baton of John Eliot Gardiner, set themselves the greatest challenge they had ever faced: under the title of "The Bach Cantata Pilgrimage" they were to mark the 250th anniversary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach by performing every church cantata the composer had ever written. They started their musical pilgrimage by giving three concerts in the Herderkirche in Weimar at Christmas 1999, in which they performed some of the cantatas Bach wrote for this occasion - including BWV 63 "Christen, a magnificent cantata celebrating the first day of Christmas.