by Nicholas Jones
Like all great drama, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passions — his settings of the gospel accounts of Jesus’s crucifixion — present conflicting points of view. We see the Passion through so many characters in the story — the disciple Peter, who denies knowing Jesus; the conflicted Roman governor Pilate, who finds no guilt in Jesus and yet sends him to the cross; the angry crowd, which demands his crucifixion; and Jesus himself, suffering and yet transcending his suffering. At every point, Bach demands our involvement with the conflicting ways in which each of these actors interpret the crucial event of the Christian story. [Read more…]
British pianist Stephen Hough succeeds at everything he sets out to do. Named as one of 20 Living Polymaths by The Economist, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2001. He’s also an accomplished painter and a published author and composer. This week at Severance Hall, Stephen Hough will join The Cleveland Orchestra for three performances of Antonín Dvořák’s challenging Piano Concerto. The concerts, under the direction of Alan Gilbert, will also include Robert Schumann’s Overture to Manfred and Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4 (“The Inextinguishable”). Check our Concert Listings
