The great "composer of the millennium" Johann Sebastian Bach stands like a solitary rock in the landscape of music history; there is less talk about where he comes from and what influenced him stylistically.

Chorwerk Ruhr embarked on a search for traces with highly interesting results: the young Johann Sebastian also listened to and studied works that were already around 100 years old. In any case, during his later time as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, he saw to it that the collection of motets Florilegium selectissimarum Cantionum was purchased anew - it was used so frequently in lessons under his aegis that the sheet music was completely worn out!

The collection of the early Baroque master and school cantor Erhard Bodenschatz, first published in 1603, illustrates in songs mostly by German or Italian masters the then-new compositional technique of the Baroque in a clearly comprehensible manner.