October 14, 2016 - 12:25 PM
NEW YORK - A major choral work composed in secret in 1920s Russia and never performed there will get its Russian debut later this month.
New York City's Clarion Choir will premiere Maximilian Steinberg's "Passion Week" at the Grand Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg on Oct. 25. That will be followed by performances in Moscow on Oct. 26 and Oct. 28, and in London on Oct. 30.
Steinberg was the son-in-law of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He composed "Passion Week" when religious music was forbidden under Communism.
It was published in Paris in the 1930s but never performed.
In the 1950s, Russian-American conductor Igor Buketoff (BOO'-keh-tahf) obtained the score but couldn't find a choir that could perform the difficult piece.
The Clarion premiered the work in New York in 2014.
News from © The Associated Press, 2016