Coming April 2014 — Passion Week

Passion Week by Maximilian Steinberg

Sacred Music in Post-Revolutionary Russia

This April, for the first time in recorded history, Cappella Romana presents the last major sacred work composed in Russia before Stalin’s 1932 crackdown: Passion Week by Maximilian Steinberg.

You’ll gain insights into Steinberg’s complicated personal history: he was born into a Jewish family in Vilnius, became the student and a son-in-law of Rimsky-Korsakov, a classmate of Stravinsky and the teacher of Shostakovich. Following his father-in-law’s death, Steinberg completed Rimsky’s Principles of Orchestration and eventually became director of the (Leningrad) Conservatory.

Steinberg’s Passion Week was composed 1921–26, during the early years of the Soviet Period when artists still had some freedom of travel and programming. However, because of later conditions imposed by Soviets, this work was never performed. Unlike Gretchaninoff’s similar collection, this Passion Week is based entirely upon Medieval chant melodies, arranged by Steinberg in rich choral textures to underscore their intrinsic power and spirituality.