Maximilian Steinberg: Passion Week

[...]Steinberg's Passion Week was composed between 1920 and 1923-a time beset with social unrest.Soon after its completion, the Bolsheviks issued a ban on all sacred music, so Steinberg relied on his role as a cultural ambassador to disseminate Passion Week to Western audiences.Vladimir Morosan, the prominent Russian musicologist, leads the listener through the stylistic traits of the New Russian Choral School, details the political reality of composers during the Russian Revolution, and, most importantly, helps the listener to identify these aspects in Steinberg's Passion Week.