The vocal œuvre of Max Reger is quite comprehensive but only few of his more than 300 works have become firmly established in the concert repertoire. One song, however, was to become a real big seller: "Mariä Wiegenlied" in which the composer had woven the old Christmas carol Joseph, lieber Joseph mein. Because of its huge success, Max Reger recommended to his publisher an instrumentation which he actually realized later: This gem for piano was turned into an atmospheric piece of pastoral music ...