During his lifetime and decades after his death, Reinhard Keiser was considered Germany’s greatest composer. He was a fascinating individual: worldly, generous, energetic, inventive and assiduous. Keiser spent most of his life in Hamburg working as a composer, as the opera’s leaseholder for four years (to varying success), as the organizer and conductor of the famous «Winter Concerts», as well as the cantor at the cathedral.

Keiser wrote the Passion According to St. Mark in his middle years. It is a mature composition that contains many modern elements. J.S. Bach highly esteemed this work and performed it a number of times in Leipzig. This inspiring recording of the St. Mark Passion, a release of an earlier LP, is the first of this work on compact disc. Georg Jelden is brilliant as the Evangelist, supported by an impressive group of vocal and instrumental soloists and Bernese choirs, all under the masterly direction of Jörg Ewald Dähler.