#Bach1723: My Highlight
Personal, anecdotal, informative, and full of conviction: we reveal our Bach highlights for the anniversary year!
Favorite Works
Here we focus on the personal: music which touches us, recordings which move us, or works which have a very personal significance. On this page members of the Carus staff, editors, and colleagues in the music business reveal their favorite pieces – this might be a choral edition, a CD recording, a song book, an organ edition, or our choir app.
Grand Opera With Less Hassle
How does an opera chorus perform? From memory of course! And for oratorio choirs, this experience alone can be an amazing one with the right preparation. Our favorite choir collection author Sabine Layer thinks that the “Great Opera Choruses” are exactly the right books to give every choir such an experience.
Choral collection lullabies and evening songs
Rocking a child to sleep and singing a calming song is probably one of the most natural forms of music-making of all. And the song of thanks after the day’s work is done, combined with the plea for a peaceful night has had its established place in evening worship for centuries. With a touch of nostalgia, choral director Tristan Meister is now thinking back to many lovely concerts which ended with Rheinberger’s Abendlied, a piece which for him is one of the most touching choral works of the Romantic period. So the hope is all the greater that we might soon be given the green light to sing this wonderful music together again.
Lore-Ley: Choral Collection Deutsche Volkslieder
As a singer, Jan Schumacher was involved in recording the accompanying CD for the choral collection Lore-Ley what is now almost 15 years ago. The arrangements of German folk songs made a deep impression on him back then. Now the choral collection for four-part mixed chorus has become a constant companion for him in rehearsals and concerts. The conductor explains what’s special for him about this collection, and shares his personal program ideas with us – which may provide inspiration for your own concerts!
Louis Vierne: Messe solennelle op 16
Klaus Brecht, long-time lecture at the State Academy for young musicians in Ochsenhausen and one of the editors of the school choir book series chorissimo! at carus, came across during the preperations for the 2020 concert year to the Messe solennelle op. 16 of the jubilee Louis Vierne. At first he was irritated, but then his enthusiasm grew, especially with a view to the setting of the choir passages.
J. S. Bach: St. Mark Passion
When asked about her favorite composers or indeed a favorite piece, Ute Kelemen could give a whole range of different answers. But if she really wanted one composer for her spell on that desert island, then it would be Bach. A single chorale by him holds so much comfort and hope that she would be able to survive for a while.
Fauré / Rouger: Les Berceaux op. 23,1
It is a very emotional moment, which Fauré captures atmospherically in his song “Les berceaux”. The ships leave the harbour, the sailors are separated from their families. The musical depiction of the pain of parting and loneliness, embedded in the incessant sound of the sea, touches Isabelle Métrope very personally, because when she sings the original art song or the choral arrangement by Denis Rouger, she sees the harbour of her childhood before her, from which her grandfather often set out to sea. And she is convinced – even without a personal connection, you will love this atmospheric arrangement!
Beethoven: Mass in C major op. 86
Conductor Hans Jaskulsky admires the originality, inspiration, and the courage to take risks in Beethoven’s C major Mass.
Freiburg Choral Collection for mixed choir
Martin Dücker is unable to choose just a single “Favorite piece”, but he looked in the “Freiburger Chorbuch” for inspiration, a book which is dear to him (in the sense of valuable, worthy – the Latin word is carus). It is also suitable for that desert island … Piece no. 95 in the collection, “O Jesu, all mein Leben bist du” by Anton Heiller (1923–1979), lingers on the mind for a long time.
Beethoven: Kyrie based on the Adagio from the “Moonlight Sonata”
Somehow the 2020 Beethoven Anniversary Year is not quite as high on the agenda as it really ought to be. Corona has completely changed the anniversary year. So it is delightful that Anja Braun’s favorite piece is the Kyrie for choir, arranged by Benedict Bierey after the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven.
