“The Passion Week” by Maximilian Steinberg

in First Panhellenic Performance

 

Requiem in D minor and religious motets for choir

by Anton Bruckner

As part of the Easter celebrations, the Municipality of Athens presents at the Olympia Municipal Music Theatre “Maria Callas” on Tuesday 12th and Friday 12th  Monday 18 April at 20:30 two solemn concerts with great works of religious music.

The concerts, organised by Culture, Sports and Youth Organization of the Municipality of Athens (OPANDA), the audience will have the opportunity to attend the first national performance of Maximilian Steinberg’s “The Passion Week”, as well as the Requiem in D minor and religious motets for choir by Anton Bruckner.

 

Maximilian Steinberg: The Passion Week

Tuesday 12 April

 

First Panhellenic Performance

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, composers Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and others created the “New Russian Choral School” renewing Orthodox Church Music. Steinberg composed the work “The Passion Week” in St. Petersburg between 1921 and 1923. It consists of 11 movements for a cappella choir, based on the services of Holy Week. Trying to escape Soviet censorship, he published the work in 1928 in Paris by W. Bessel & Cie.

Sophia Karvouna, soprano

Katerina Nounopoulou, soprano

Ioanna Vrakatseli, mezzo-soprano

Christos Kehris, tenor

Antonis Dimou, baritone

Music director: Stavros Beris

Α. Bruckner: Requiem aeternam dona eis domine

 

  1. Monday 18 April

The Athens City Symphony Orchestra and Choir, in the spirit of the season, present rare masterpieces by Anton Bruckner, a composer whose works are not often heard in Greece. The concert opens with the Athens Municipal Choir performing four religious motets for a cappella choir, which are only a small part of the composer’s extensive oeuvre with religious content. This is followed by the Requiem in D minor, a work with an unusually simple orchestration and a straightforward form, which is nevertheless distinguished by its imposing style and expressive power.

Religious motets for acappella choir

Ave Maria

Locus iste a Deo factus est

Os justi meditabitur sapientiam

Christus factus est pro nobis

 

Requiem in D minor

Victoria Horosunova-Diakaki, soprano

Marita Paparizou, mezzo-soprano

Yannis Kalyvas, tenor

Haris Andrianos, baritone

Symphony Orchestra of the Municipality of Athens

Music director.

 

Choir of the Municipality of Athens 

Choir conductor: Stavros Beris

STAVROS BEHRENS, DIRECTOR OF THE MUSIC DEPARTMENT, STAVROS BEHRENS

Olympia, Municipal Music Theatre “Maria Callas”

59 Akadimias Street, 106 79 – Athens

210 3642540
www.opanda.gr