Tuesday Evening Classics - Bach: Matthew Passion

On March 31, 2015, Tuesday Evening Classics host, David Schonfeld, presents a special program commemorating Holy Week.

David will broadcast a complete performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's masterwork, The Passion of Jesus Christ according to the Evangelist Matthew, in a critically acclaimed recent recording directed by René Jacobs. This work is surely the epitome of the Passion setting--a type of seasonal oratorio with a long history in Europe. Bach demonstrates his technical mastery, depth of feeling, and dramatic flair in this retelling of the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus, interspersed with individual meditation (arias) and communal reflection (chorales).

Time permitting, David will also air a great and solemn oratorio by Paul Hindemith, composed to Walt Whitman's poem, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd. Whitman's poem is a lament on the death of Abraham Lincoln. Hindemith thought it an appropriate libretto for a work intended to memorialize the recently deceased President Franklin Roosevelt--and all the casualties of World War II. He gave it the subtitle: A Requiem for Those We Love. We will hear the work as conducted by the composer in 1963, only months before his own death.