The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century continues along its vibrant music-making journey, very much in the spirit of its founder Frans Brüggen, but now with invited conductors. In order to tackle the mighty Missa Solemnis by Beethoven, the orchestra has gone into partnership with the highly-regarded Daniel Reuss, who has recorded a sizeable number of critically-acclaimed choral masterpieces, many of them with Cappella Amsterdam. This fine example of a Dutch chorus is possessed of all the right skills needed for climbing this glorious mountain of a work, notably vocal agility and stamina.

The chorus is joined by an out standing quartet of soloists in Carolyn Sampson, Marianne Beate Kielland, Thomas Walker and David Wilson-Johnson.The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century has had much experience already performing the music of Beethoven with period instruments (and its current concert schedule embraces symphonies, piano concertos and Fidelio), all the more necessary with a work as demanding as the Missa Solemnis (a composition dating from 1819-23).

This new recording is accompanied not just by an elegant essay from Bas van Putten, but also by a fascinating series of images captured by photographer and violinist Annelies van der Vegt across the Netherlands during the course of the orchestra’s concert tour with the Missa Solemnis.