The third act of Richard Wagner’s “Parsifal” is set on Good Friday. According to the composer, the opera was intended to have a “rapturous effect on the mind”. But even those with no connection to Christian mysticism and the work’s artistically heightened message of redemption will enjoy two wonderful instrumental pieces by the opera’s composer, “Prelude” and “Good Friday Spell”.

Bach’s “Musical Offering” and Webern’s handling of timbres inspired Sofia Gubaidulina to compose “Offertorium”, which is imbued with Christian religiosity. She wrote it for the violinist Gidon Kremer in 1980, and Daniel Hope interprets it here.