Personalities

We take a look at fascinating biographies, or report on particular aspects in the works of Bach, Mozart or Mendelssohn, Matsushita, Miškinis or Močnik. And we present the performers on our CD label, such as Frieder Bernius and the Stuttgart Kammerchor, Hans-Christoph Rademann and the Gaechinger Cantorey, and Calmus Ensemble. As well as this, you will get to meet our editors who report on their editions published by Carus - all true experts of choral music.

Katarina Pustinek Rakar

24.02.2021/0 Comments/in Personalities /by Katarina Pustinek Rakar

The Slovenian composer Katarina Pustinek Rakar (b. 1979) studied music theory, oboe, singing, and composition in Ljubljana. She is actively involved with the best Slovenian choirs, is a member of the Slovenian Philharmonic Choir, and teaches sol-fa and music theory at the Ljubljana Conservatory. Her compositions comprise mainly vocal music (children’s songs, works for youth, women’s, male voice, and mixed choirs), and she is regularly commissioned to write for these groups.

Camille Saint-Saëns’ Musique religieuse

12.01.2021/0 Comments/in Personalities, Choral works in focus /by Herbert Lölkes

Curtain up for Saint-Saëns, whose 100th anniversary of death is in December 2021! The composes’ oeuvre encompasses virtually all of the musical genres of his time. The Latin Oratorio de Noël in particular has taken a place among the canon of Christmas oratorios. But his choral output ranges from short choral pieces, often with organ accompaniment, to large-scale liturgical genres and oratorios – and large-scale means really large-scale. Learn more!

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger’s Musica Sacra

09.12.2020/0 Comments/in Personalities, Music stories /by Barbara Mohn

Church music was particularly dear to the Liechtenstein composer Josef Gabriel Rheinberger. But he was not a follower of the prevalent Cecilianism movement of his time. He strove instead for emotional warmth and sensuality in his musical language, rather than serene austerity. In his works he found his own individual sound, combining traditional structures with tension-laden harmonic writing in equal measure. Read more!

The Life and Works of Louis Vierne

07.10.2020/0 Comments/in Personalities /by Jon Laukvik

In 2020, we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the composer and organist Louis Vierne whose life was not only marked by artistic success but also by health problems and personal misfortune. Above all, his impaired sight from birth would prove to be a heavy burden throughout his life which he countered through his active career as an organist and composer. Works for the organ predominate in his extensive oeuvre, but also his vocal works are of great appeal.

Gaining insight into the personality of Johann Sebastian Bach

23.09.2020/1 Comment/in Personalities /by Andreas Glöckner

What do we actually know about the personality of Bach over beyond the idealization of the Cantor of St. Thomas and even deification? It is only possible to compile cautious assumptions about his personal manner with the aid of sparse surviving comments by himself or his contemporaries. Some of his secular cantatas depicting the social life of his time hint at humorous and light-hearted character traits.

Camille Saint-Saëns

30.06.2020/0 Comments/in Personalities /by Denis Rouger

Camille Saint-Saëns is one of the outstanding personalities in French musical life – as composer, teacher, and organist. Denis Rouger, one of his successors at the Église de la Madeleine in Paris, with a very personal portrait.

In Handel’s footsteps through London

25.05.2020/0 Comments/in Personalities, Music stories /by Barbara Mohn

When George Frideric Handel crossed the English Channel the first time in 1710, London was enjoying a huge economic upturn. The building boom altered the cityscape of the second largest city in Europe, with almost 630,000 inhabitants, the financial market grew and experienced the first stockmarket crash, the social contrasts were stark, but a simple musician such as Handel could die a rich man. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of today’s metropolis, we can still set out on a walk in the footsteps of Handel.

Bobbi Fischer’s musical universe

29.12.2019/0 Comments/in Personalities /by Christina Rothkamm

Universal is an ambitious adjective, but one which perhaps best describes the musician Karl Albrecht Fischer, alias “Bobbi Fischer”. Beginning with classical music, his musical horizons encompass chansons, Latin music and jazz, and extend to world music.

In search of Bach in his music library

27.12.2019/0 Comments/in Personalities, Music stories /by Christine Blanken

It is an exciting undertaking to research the intellectual and musical horizons of a great composer. What Bach was interested in, whether it be musical, literary, theological or even the natural sciences, what was in his music cabinet apart from his own compositions – this sometimes arouses greater attention than studying well-known works by the composer for the umpteenth time.

Handel’s English oratorios

21.10.2018/0 Comments/in Personalities, Choral works in focus /by Jürgen Budday

The period in which the above-mentioned works were written was a very fruitful phase in Handel’s creative output. He composed the ode Alexander’s Feast in 1735/36, Israel in Egypt and Saul in 1738/39, and Messiah followed in 1741/42. Furthermore, during this period he composed not only the oratorio L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1740), but also a further eleven (!) operas, including what is probably his best-known, Xerxes, and – as his very last opera of all – Deidamia in 1741.