| Radio
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY APRIL 8
Afternoon Concert (RNZ Concert, 3.00pm). The Enso String Quartet, the exciting young US ensemble that includes Christchurch cellist Richard Belcher, celebrated Henri Dutilleux’s 100th birthday in this 2016 concert recorded in Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre. Dutilleux’s Ainsi la nuit sits next to compositions by Beethoven and Ravel and a work written by Auckland composer Alex Taylor especially for their tour.
WEDNESDAY APRIL 12
Music Alive (RNZ Concert, 7.00pm). If it’s Easter, it must be Bach. This concert from the Concertgebouw includes the Easter Oratorio with soprano Yetzabel Arias Fernandez, contralto Maarten Engeltjes, tenor Tilman Lichdi and bass Klaus Mertens. Ton Koopman conducts the Amsterdam Baroque Chorus and Orchestra, and the line-up also has works by Locatelli, Handel and Graupner. Easter music features on Monday’s Music Alive (7.00pm), in which the Tudor Consort perform Renaissance pieces for Holy Week.
GOOD FRIDAY
Dying for a Song (RNZ National, 11.04am). Good Friday’s line-up includes this BBC documentary in which Rex Bloomstein meets musicians who have been persecuted for speaking out, including Egyptian singer Ramy Essam, who was tortured after rallying crowds in Tahrir Square; Iranian singer Shahin Najafi, who is the subject of a fatwa; and singer Deeyah Khan, who fled Norway after threats from her own Pakistani community.
Bach’s St John Passion (RNZ Concert, 1.00pm). UK conductor and Bach expert Stephen Layton leads the Auckland Philharmonia in this 2014 recording of St John Passion.
He is joined by tenor Nicholas Mulroy in the Evangelist role, and Kiwi Paul Whelan, who plays Jesus. Sacred music continues in Music Alive at 7.00pm, which features a 2015 recording from the Adam Chamber Music Festival of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. The NZ String Quartet, the Ying Quartet and the Song Company are joined by singers Michelle Ryan and Anna Fraser. Gillian Whitehead’s Song Without Words for Cello Solo and Douglas Lilburn’s Three Duos for Violin and Viola also feature.