The prosperous Hanseatic city of Hamburg with its thriving cultural life always attracted capable minds. One of these was Thomas Selle (1599-1663), who worked here as city cantor from 1641. Around 1650, he compiled what he considered to be the most relevant of his own sacred compositions for printing, in order to preserve his work for posterity. As was customary at the time, there were different instrumentation variants of the works, so that he presented several alternatives in Concertuum Latino Sacrorum. The result is a fascinating compendium by one of the most important composers of his time.

His colleague Georg Philipp Telemann, who was only a few years older, described him as “the greatest spirit of his time”. Reinhard Keiser is a striking example of a musician who was held in the highest esteem in his time, but is hardly present today. He wrote numerous stage works for the Hamburg Opera at the Gänsemarkt.