At this most festive time of the year, it’s important to remember those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

At the heart of today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network will be a contemporary meditation on Hans Christian Andersen’s keeping-it-real holiday parable, “The Little Match Girl.”

You’ll recall that, in Andersen’s story, a little girl attempts to support her family and appease an abusive father by selling matches on the street. Failing to elicit any interest from the passersby, she warms herself by depleting her wares and finds delirious escape in comforting visions – a warm stove, a holiday feast, a happy family, and a Christmas tree. The matches run out, and she is found the next morning, frozen to death. It is revealed to the reader that she is happy at last with her grandmother in heaven.

Composer David Lang – now artist-in-residence at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study – takes “The Little Match Girl” and reimagines it in the manner of a Bach Passion, drawing parallels between the Crucifixion and the death of a poor girl. The word “passion,” after all, is from the Latin, for “suffering.”

“There is no Bach in my piece and there is no Jesus,” writes Lang, “rather the suffering of the little girl has been substituted for Jesus, (I hope) elevating her suffering to a higher plane.”

“The Little Match Girl Passion” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2008.

We’ll hear it performed this afternoon by The Thirteen, under the direction of Matthew Robertson. The balance of the program will be made up of carols and Christmas music from across the centuries.

The Thirteen’s next concerts will take place this weekend in Alexandria, VA, Washington, DC, and Bethesda, MD. The program will include Philadelphia composer Kile Smith’s “The Consolation of Apollo,” which juxtaposes the words of Apollo 8 astronauts, spoken on Christmas Eve 1968, with the writings of Roman philosopher Boethius, for a fantastical take on the Christmas story. Find out more by visiting the choir’s website, thethirteenchoir.org.

Following today’s Noontime Concert, stick around for further musical reflections on winter and the Christmas holiday. We’ll do our best to warm hands, heart and spirit, from 12 to 4 p.m. EST on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.