TOP 5 EASTER RECORDINGS

Dear readers/subscribers,

As it's Easter weekend, I thought I'd quickly run through my top 5 recordings that I'll be listening to over the next few days—as a cultural Christian with a Buddhist leaning.

And regardless of whether you're averse to Easter as a whole, perhaps you'll still enjoy my sample recommendations. ^^

Digital Renegade

5. Easter Parade (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Toy Easter bunnies, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, and the songs of Irving Berlin—what's not to love? I can certainly think of no better (non-religious) music to accompany the Easter weekend than the original motion picture soundtrack to MGM's Easter Parade (1948).

Personal favourites include Drum Crazy, Easter Parade, and Steppin' Out With My Baby.

4. Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni)

There's nothing like some red-blooded Italian verismo opera to add a bit of Sicilian heat to the Easter weekend. I remember hearing the famous intermezzo after watching Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980) for the first time as a teenager, and then, a few years later, experiencing the full opera (set on Easter Sunday) at the New York Metropolitan Opera House during my first visit to the Big Apple.

3. St Matthäus-Passion (Bach)

If, like me, you're more culturally invested in the story of Christ's crucifixion—as a tourist of the faith—then Bach's St. Matthäus-Passion is all you need. In its soaring beauty and solemn grace, the story finds its way into the heart—whether you're listening on a purely musical level or because something in the timeless narrative stirs a quiet sense of connection.

2. Resurrection Symphony (Gustav Mahler)

There’s nothing like a spiritual schizophrenic like Mahler—who dabbled in Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism, and Taoism—to go all in on delivering one of the most epic religious works in the entire canon of Western classical music. It’ll blast away the last of winter’s cobwebs from your mind and soul as you emerge, cleansed, into a new spring.

1. Parsifal (Richard Wagner)

Hyperbolic though it may sound, I'm fairly convinced that the final chorus of Wagner's Parsifal is the most beautiful piece of Western music ever composed. The entire opera—charting Parsifal’s journey from holy fool to enlightened warrior—is a thing of wonder, with a seemingly supernatural ability to dissolve time as you listen, like some kind of musical zona à la Tarkovsky.

Of course, if you don’t have a spare four or five hours to take in the full opera, all you really need to sample is the Good Friday scene and the final chorus of Act III to appreciate the cosmic magic at play here.