Capella Amsterdam Orchestra, Daniel Reuss

The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century continues its vibrant music-making journey, very much in the spirit of its late founder Frans Brüggen, with specially invited conductors. In order to tackle Beethoven's mighty 'Missa Solemnis', the orchestra formed a partnership with highly-regarded Daniel Reuss, who has recorded a sizeable number of critically-acclaimed choral masterpieces, many of them with Cappella Amsterdam. This fine Dutch chorus is possessed of all the right skills to climb this glorious mountain of a work; notably vocal agility and stamina. The chorus is joined by an outstanding quartet of soloists in Carolyn Sampson, Marianne Beate Kielland, Thomas Walker and David Wilson-Johnson. The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century has significant experience performing the music of Beethoven on period instruments (and its current concert schedule embraces the symphonies, piano concertos and Fidelio), all the more necessary with such a demanding work.

Following on from and designed along the same lines as the Guide to Period Instruments, this boxed set includes an exhaustive introductory text as well as a great quantity of music excerpts on the set’s eight CDs. These extracts have been taken from the extensive repertoire recorded by Ricercar over many years, with excerpts from recordings kindly provided by our colleagues from Harmonia Mundi, Gimell, Accent, Alpha and Sony supplementing our programme where necessary. The Lutheran repertoire of the Renaissance has remained for all intents and purposes unrecorded up until now; the tracks illustrating this repertoire together with other excerpts have been recorded specially for this compilation by Vox Luminis.