Busy weekend: Rowan Pierce [Gerard Collett]

WHEN it’s Easter – as it is now, with a vengeance – there’s no musical escape from Bach, and none whatever from his Passion settings which are log-jammed over London on Good Friday afternoon and evening. There’s a Matthew Passion at St George’s Hanover Square, 4pm, featuring the suddenly in-demand soprano Anna Dennis who won an RPS award last month (London-handel-festival.com). A John Passion from the Britten Sinfonia at the Barbican, 6pm (barbican.org.uk). And another John Passion at St Martin-in-the-Fields, 6pm, sung by its resident Voices (stmartin-in-the-fields.org).

But the one I’d chiefly recommend is the John Passion at St John’s Smith Square, 2.30pm, given by the superb Polyphony choir with the Age of Enlightenment Orchestra conducted by Stephen Layton. It’s an annual observance, always done impeccably with first-class soloists – who this year include Rowan Pierce and Helen Charlston, with Nick Pritchard as the all-important Evangelist. For my money (I’m tempted to say 30 pieces of silver but critics never earn that much) it’s the prime choice and an Easter necessity. sjss.org.uk

• If you’re not Bach’d-out by Holy Saturday, there’s his Easter Oratorio that evening at Wigmore Hall, delivered by the period ensemble Florilegium with Rowan Pierce again (she’s having a busy weekend): wigmore-hall.org.uk But for something not so completely different, how about a Messiah? Or two. There’s a big one, sung by the Royal Choral Society, at the Albert Hall on Holy Saturday (royalalberthall.com), and a smaller-scale one at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Easter Monday.

Also at St Martin’s, on the Saturday, are the brilliant, often funny vocal group I Fagiolini – though they’ll have put the japes to one side for this ultra-serious concert of Victoria’s Tenebrae Responses for Good Friday and Holy Saturday (no jokes there) interlaced with Bach’s music for solo violin. A sombre but attractively reflective programme. wigmore-hall.org.uk

And if you want to hear something that fits the season but isn’t choral, Haydn’s Seven Last Words from the Cross plays at Temple Church, off the Strand, on Good Friday. A work for string quartet that’s effectively a meditation on the Crucifixion for instruments alone, it’s powerfully intense and deeply moving. templemusic.org

• Something not to be forgotten is the choral music being sung liturgically – as it was meant to be – this weekend in a church near you. On Easter Sunday alone, Our Lady of Hal, Camden Town, has Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolae; Christ Church, Hampstead, has Schubert’s Mass in C; and you’ll find me at All Hallows, Gospel Oak where they have Mozart’s Coronation Mass.

Many of these churches have professional consorts, serviced by ex-Oxbridge choral scholars or students from the London music colleges, who sing to an impressive standard. And of course, if you want the very best choral experience, there’s Westminster Abbey (where the new director of music Andrew Nethsingha offers Vierne’s Messe Solenelle on Easter Sunday), St Paul’s Cathedral (where by coincidence they’re doing the same piece) and Westminster Cathedral (for Rheinberger’s Cantus Missae).

Don’t imagine that these things are only for signed-up believers: churches welcome everybody to experience what they do, and it can be spectacular. Especially at Easter.