Choral Works

With the rediscovery and first recording of choral works by Hans von Koessler Cantabile Regensburg honors, together with their conductor Matthias Beckert, this renowned composer born in 1853 in the Upper Palatinate and especially acclaimed in Hungary. As the cousin of Max Reger and the student of Joseph Rheinberger, Koessler grew up – a friend of Johannes Brahms – in a musically highly inspiring environment. Franz Liszt appointed him personally to his “Royal Hungarian Music Academy” in Budapest to influence as one of the most sought-after teachers of composition an entire generation of Hungarian composers. Among his students are such well-known names as Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernst von Dohnányi, Fritz Reiner and Emmerich Kálmán. Koessler passed away in the Lower Frankonian town of Ansbach in 1926.

This CD recording by Cantabile Regensburg includes an exquisite selection from the choral works by Hans Koessler: In addition to songs of farewell, wanderlust and homesickness, and “Old German Minnelieder”, the more than 40 singers have also recorded a series of polychoral psalms and hymns. The majority of the recordings are world premieres!

Cantabile Regensburg is one of the flagships of the German choral scene. Numerous awards at renowned competitions at home and abroad as well as several CD releases in cooperation with Bavarian Broadcasting attest to the high level of this ensemble. Matthias Beckert is a professor of conducting at the University of Music in Würzburg, Germany, the University of Music in Hanover, Germany and the Academy of Music in Cracow, Poland. Furthermore, he is a guest conductor for radio choirs and renowned orchestras and directs the Cantabile Regensburg vocal ensemble and the Monteverdi Choir of Würzburg as well.