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.

W. F. Bach: Two sonatas for flute and basso continuo

Read about why our colleague Marion Beyer likes to bit her teeth on the “Two Sonatas for Flute and Basso continuo by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach …

Heinrich Schütz: “Saul, wilt thou injure me!” SWV 145

For the first time, Uwe Wolf got to know Heinrich Schütz’s Saul in his youth when he was just joining the choir as bass. The piece made such a deep impression on the boy, it continues to this day …

Max Reger: Acht geistliche Gesänge

Walter Väth’s first encounter with Max Reger was on the organ with his choral fantasies. In the first place he found Reger’s music to be bombastic and difficult, weighty and expressive, but not necessarily simple. But this assessment changed when Väth came into contact with Reger’s later works, These later works also include the Acht geistliche Gesänge op. 138, which schow a simpler Reger …

Gabriel Fauré: Requiem op. 48

Sabine Bock had her first encounter with Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem as a jung cellist with her youth symphony orchestra. At first she was surprised that the low strings had to appier alone for the first rehersal together with a solo violin. But she got the answer to the unspoken question with the first sounds of the Requiem. The dark and warm tone color created by a divisi of cello and viola captivated Sabine Bock and still makes her “cellist’s heart” beat faster today …

Heinrich Schütz: Musikalische Exequiem

Read, how Nikolai Ott developed a kind of friendship with Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien …

Johann Bach (attributed): Unser Leben ist ein Schatten [We must vanish like a shadow]

Already in his school days, while he sang in the Windbach Boys Choir, Dr. Tobias Rimek met the motet Unser Leben ist ein Schatten [We must vanish like a shadow]. The motet is attributed to Johann Bach, the oldest certified representative of the Bach family. the mood of this motet already cast a spell over the young Tobias rimek and his enthusiasm for “Early Music”.

Mendelssohn: Te Deum a 8

“Wer Musik nicht liebt, verdient nicht, ein Mensch genannt zu werden, wer sie nur liebt, ist erst ein halber Mensch, wer sie aber treibt, ist ein ganzer Mensch.” – “He who does not love music does not deserve to be called a human being; he who merely loves it is only half a human being; but he who makes music is a whole human being.” (transl. from https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/goethe-musician-and-his-influence-on-german-song. In accordance with this Goethe quotation, Mayira Florschütz’s choice of a Favorit Work a work which not only lies especially close to her heart, but one which she also performed most recently: The Te Deum a 8 with basso continuo, by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

Luigi Cherubini: Krönungsmesse [Cronation Mass]

When Sebastian Hammelbeck heard Luigi Cherubini’s Cronation Mass (Messe solennelle in G) for the first time a few years ago, it was a real discovery for him. From the first bars he was fascinated by the music …

Johannes Brahms: Zigeunerlieder

Favorit Works often remind you of particularly beautiful memories. It was the same with Claudia Seidl when she decided on Brahm’s Zigeunerlieder op. 103 [Gypsy songs]. The piece is a catchy tune that accompanied her for a long time after rehearsing for a concert program.

Fanny Hensel: Nachtreigen

Favorit Works often remind you of particularly beautiful memories. It was the same with Claudia Seidl when she decided on Brahm’s Zigeunerlieder op. 103 [Gypsy songs]. The piece is a catchy tune that accompanied her for a long time after rehearsing for a concert program.