Maximilian Steinberg (1883-1946) – Passion Week (Premiere)
Rachmaninoff – Selections from Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Op. 31
The renowned Clarion Choir presents the New York premiere of a long lost Russian liturgy that was sheltered for some 70 years from the threat of communist confiscation: Maximilian Steinberg’s Passion Week. Evoking the rich harmonics of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, Passion Week is also its stylistic complement: offering its own soaring emotions, but contrasting them with flowing meditations, prismatic reflections, and momentary revelations on the mystical themes of judgment, righteousness, mercy, and redemption. The concert also will include select movements from Rachmaninoff’s incandescent Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
Live Recording
Steinberg - Passion Week, Movement 10, ‘Arise, O God’
7pm Pre-Concert Discussion
The Discovery of Passion Week
Dr. Alexander Lingas, Byzantine Musicologist, City University, London, artistic director of Cappella Romana, the choir that gave the world premiere of Passion Week last April in Portland, OR, and in Seattle, WA.
Dr. Vladimir Morosan, a leading expert in the fields of Russian choral music and Orthodox liturgical music, and Founder and President of Musica Russica, the largest publisher of Russian choral music outside of Russia.
Barbara Mouk, whose father, conductor Igor Buketoff, was introduced to Passion Week by Dmitri Shostakovich, Steinberg’s protégé, in the 1950s.
Clarion’s artistic director Steven Fox will serve as moderator of this discussion, which will take place in the Church of St Jean Baptiste at 7pm.