Claudette Joannis

Hickox has a wonderful feel for this music…In short I would put Hickox at the top of the list… Seasoned collectors may well have the major Haydn masses well covered, but if you want the less-known early works, along with interesting fillers, all superbly done and neatly put in a single box, you’ll want this as well. There is splendid music here, full of vitality as only Haydn could express it.

–American Record Guide

In a conducting career spanning several decades, Sir Neville Marriner has had many great achievements, especially with his own Academy of St. Martin In The Fields, and as music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra from 1969 to 1978. Another great achievement was the series of recordings he made during the middle and late 1980s with the Dresden State Orchestra for EMI of the later Mass settings of Franz Joseph Haydn, recordings that, alongside similar ones made by Leonard Bernstein, both with the New York Philharmonic in the 1970s and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the 1980s, bought this particular aspect of Haydn's output back into the forefront after having been somewhat obscured by his one hundred four symphonies.

This 10 CD-Set offers a collection of the most popular Mass compositions from the Viennese Classics up to the romantic period. It includes famous masterpieces like Mozart’s „Coronation Mass“, Beethoven Missa solemnis, Haydn „Harmony Mass“, Gounod St. Cecilia Mass but also rarities like „Missa Sancti Joannis Nepomuceni“ by Michael Haydn, the „Coronation Mass“ by Cherubini, „Missa sacra“ by Robert Schumann and the „Misa solemnis“ of the german romantic composer Friedrich Kiel. Performed by well known artists like the Vienna Boys’ Choir, RIAS Chamber Choir, Tölzer Boys’ Choir, Wiener Akademie and last but not least also includes the spectacular recording of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with conductor Michael Gielen.