Easter Music

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 36, 18 March 1932, Page 23

Easter Music

Two Big Works trom 2ZLW

N the evening of Palm Sunday . (March 20) Dr. Charles Wood’s musi¢al setting of the Passion according to St. Mark will be sung in place of the ordinary evensong at St. Paul’s Pro-Cathedral, Wellington, and will be broadcast by 2ZW, commencing at 7 p.m. For many years past it- has been the custom of St. Paul’s to inaugurate the services of Holy Week in this way, a selection from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion having been given on several occasions. The St. Mark Passion is probably the finest of all modern works of its kind, and it is not unworthy of comparison, in graphic power and devotional effect, with its great prototype.. It was sung at St. Paul’s for three successive years on its first aypearance, when it made a _ profound impression on both singers and listeners. ( Dr. Charles Wood, who died a few years since, was Professor of Music in the University of Cambridge, an office in which he succeeded Sir Charles Stanford. On the evening of Good Friday. March 25, 2ZW will broadeast the British Broadcasting Corporation Choir’s recorded version of that everpopular oratorio, "The Crucifixion."

This work, by the late Sir John Stainer, is probably the best known and most widely popular English oratorio of the nineteenth century. Since its first production in 1887 the work has been regularly performéd, especially at Bastertide, in Dnglish-speaking communities. throughout the -world. Sir John Stainer, the composer of "The Crucifixion," was for.many years organist at Oxford and at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. He had-an -inexhaustible fund of beautiful and touching melody, and in the wonderful story of the Passion he found a subject which called forth all his finest qualities and demanded the fullest expression of his genius, " The soloists who will be heard 2n 2ZW’s broadcast of this work are al: well-known B.B.C. artists, and include Francis Russell (tenor), Robert Easton (bass), Robert Carr and Randal Jackson, ‘The.choruses by the B.B.C. Choir are particularly fine, especially such deeply tragic episodes as the "Procession to: Calvary"- and "The Appeal of the Crucified. "