What are your favorite compositions that have to do with Holy Week?

Question

Examples: St. John Passion or Easter Cantatas by J.S. Bach.

A personal fav of mine is Good Friday Music by Wagner.

Note: I won't have email access for a few days but look forward to Monday when I can see your responses and comment on them. Happy Easter, everyone!

Answer 1

You mentioned JS Bach's Easter Cantata - how about his delectable Easter Oratorio (BWV 249) - there's a magnificent recording available, performed by Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir (Ton Koopman) - it's as chocolaty as Easter eggs!



Hafwen x

Answer 2

I am listening as I type to St Matthew Passion (the highly regarded Naxos version with Hungarian forces). I also listened, this morning, to an old favourite that many look down their noses at, namely Sir John Stainer's 'Crucifixion'. I am also fond of another English work, namely Edmund Rubbra's Sinfonia Sacra which is a telling of the Passion story right through to the Road to Emmaus - interesting enough, Rubbra, a Catholic, attempts a synthesis between both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism by using both Roman Catholic hymns and Protestant Chorales.



Edit. Since writing the above, I have received my CD of the work 'Via Crucis' by the 40 year old Polish composer, Pawel Lukaszewski. I m listening to it as I type, and I cannot recomment the work too highly. If you respond to the music of the American, Morton Lauridsen, you will enjoy this. It also reminded me that I should listen to Liszt's Via Crucis incidentally another work that uses both Catholic hymns (Vexilla Regis, Stabat Mater) and Protestant Chorales (Passion Chorale)



Oh and I must comment on the inane response from our atheist friend...

Answer 3

I am listening to John-Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Singers doing StJohn Passion at this very moment, score in front of me.





PS there is an Easter version of the Bach Magnificat which is in Eb and has extra alleluias

Answer 4

Drat! Alberich beet me too it!



Listen to the Messiah... My two favorite parts,



-The Trumpet shall sound

-I know that my redeemer liveth



They are surely the two most "Eastery" pieces there are...



(yay! Made up a new word!)



Happy Easter to you!!!

Answer 5

Handel's "Messiah". I especially love "for unto us a savior is born".



And I love this piece though it has no particular association with Easter; it's just great for any religious occasion or otherwise: this may sound absurd to some, but to me it bespeaks of God's love for us all, and his yearning for us to return to the source from whence we came:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by2PHDfBa1w



Alberich

Answer 6

Bach's St. Matthew Passion is a favorite of mine.

Answer 7

0 - atheist hahahahahahahahahah

Answer 8

beethoven mass in c....marvelous