On the 350th anniversary of the year of his death, the Hamburg church music director Thomas Selle is being acknowledged with a CD completely dedicated to his early production. Between the ages of 25 to 35, he initially held smaller posts in the Dithmarschen region – in Heide, Wesselburen and Itzehohe – before taking over the highest and most important position in North Germany as music director of the main churches of Hamburg. Astonishingly, despite the prevailing Thirty Years' War, he published eleven collections containing works of various genres during these early years – an extensive compendium from which the Hamburg musician and musicologist Monika Mandelartz with her Ensemble Metamorfosi introduce a selection, painting a comprehensive picture of the composer and living conditions in Dithmarschen. The spiritual stands next to the secular here, the amorous beside the earthy, academic life next to social exchange – composed in the latest manner, the just-emerging thoroughbass style and the Italian seconda prattica.