Music for Holy Week and Easter
Gramophone
Monday, April 10, 2017
Explore music inspired by Holy Week and Easter with Gramophone
This week on the Gramophone website we will be exploring some of the finest music written for Holy Week and Easter with three special articles. In Music for Holy Week: a specialist's guide Edward Breen explores 10 recordings of works inspired by the period from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday spanning the seven days immediately before Easter Sunday. This is followed by our Top 10 Classical Recordings for Easter, which includes recommended recordings of Handel's Messiah and Bach's Easter Cantata. Finally, for Easter Sunday, there is Peter Quantrill's guide to a few of the greatest musical settings of the word Alleluia.
In addition, we have a fascinating new blog from conductor David Temple, who has just made the first commercial recording of Bach's St John Passion in English since Britten's in the 1970s, and we have a new podcast with conductor Nigel Short, who talks to Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford about why the music written for Holy Week has such extraordinary power.
Music for Holy Week: a specialist's guide
Edward Breen draws on the vast musical repertoire associated with the week just before Easter, resulting in a fascinating and varied selection encompassing pieces by composers from Thomas Tallis to John Adams...
Top 10 classical music recordings for Easter
Easter has prompted some of the greatest works of art in every medium, and music certainly has its share of masterpieces by composers from Bach to Poulenc...
Alleluias: a specialist's guide
For many people, the term ‘alleluia’ brings to mind the eponymous Handel chorus, but, as Peter Quantrill argues, there are many and varied examples of the genre through the ages and into the 21st century...
Unmoved by Bach's St John Passion? Try listening to it in English
David Temple introduces the first commercial recording in English since Britten's in 1971...
Gramophone Podcast: Nigel Short on music for Holy Week
The conductor and founder of a new festival on why the music for Holy Week has such extraordinary power...
