CT Public Radio Will Celebrate The Easter Holiday With Two Special Programs

Connecticut Public Radio — WPKT 90.5 (Hartford/New Haven) and WEDW 88.5 FM (Stamford/Greenwich) — will air two special programs celebrating the Easter holiday, starting with “Mahler, Symphony No 2, ‘Resurrection,’” on Friday, April 21, at 9 pm, and “Handel’s Messiah with Robert Shaw,” on Sunday, April 23, at 2 pm.

“Mahler, Symphony No 2, ‘Resurrection’” will feature Yuri Temirkanov, who initiated his tenure as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Mahler’s Symphony No 2, a piece of music the makes the earth rumble with its awesome sound. The special National Public Radio Easter Sunday broadcast will begin where the story usually ends: with the death of the hero, expressed in the mightiest of Mahler’s funeral marches.

The program goes on to explore various ways of confronting death: gentle nostalgia for the deceased, a sense of life’s meaninglessness, a childlike expression of faith sung by a mezzo. Then, in a shattering finalé, the graves are opened and mankind marches to meet its maker.

The program will feature host Martin Goldsmith along with soprano Janice Chandler; mezzo-soprano Nancy Maultsby; and the Baltimore Symphony and Chorus performing a transcendent performance.

“Handel’s Messiah with Robert Shaw” is a Connecticut Public Radio encore performance of one of Handel’s greatest works, focusing on celebration and remembrance. It is a grand classic of choral literature, which returns this spring under the direction of the man who helped forge an American choral tradition: the late, inimitable Robert Shaw.

First introduced for the Easter season and now a seasonal perennial, Messiah is the most popular of all works in choral literature. Most amazing is that, thanks to the composer’s cheerful willingness to adjust the piece to meet a wide variety of performing opportunities, there is no so-called definitive version of this work.

Astonishingly, the piece allows each conductor to leave his or her own personal stamp on it in performance. When this elasticity was combined with the late Mr Shaw’s masterful direction, the result was a performance of mystical beauty and enduring grace, a worthy legacy from an American musical luminary.