Joseph Eybler was a Viennese composer of the late 18th and 19th centuries. He was a pupil of Johan Georg Albrechtsberger (as were Hummel and Beethoven), and was a respected friend of Mozart and Haydn. He is believed to have had a close involvement with the composing and posthumous completion of Mozart's "Requiem". His Christmas Oratorio "The Shepherds at the Crib in Bethlehem" was his his first major choral work at the age of 29. Its musical style is a synergistic blend of "late baroque" elements (no doubt imbibed from his traditionalist mentor Albrechtsberger) together with the then modern style developed by Haydn and Mozart. Listeners can be grateful to the conductor of this performance, Wolfgang Helbich (Director of Music at Saint Peter's Cathedral in Bremen), whose resaerches have rescued this entrancing work from undesereved obscurity.

Joseph Eybler was one of the most promising young composers in Vienna when Mozart died in 1791, and it was to him that Constanze Mozart turned for a completion of the already-commissioned Requiem mass. Eybler, whom the often acerbic Mozart had praised in strong terms, had the wit to realize the difficulty of the task, resulting in the path-of-least-resistance completion by Süssmayr that has come down to the present day. The two symphonies on this disc date from the late 1780s. Their model is not so much Mozart but Haydn, with their slow introductions and their striving toward highly original minuets (the Symphony No. 2 has two of them).

Bereits das erste Album von Reinhard Goebels Aufnahmeprojekt "Beethovens Welt" mit Violinkonzerten von Franz Clement (1780-1842) erhielt große Beachtung und exzellente Rezensionen weltweit. Die Welt am Sonntag widmete dem Komponisten sogar zwei Seiten als herausragende Entdeckung und urteilte abschließend: "Wenn die Entdeckung Beethoven-Zeitgenossen, die sich gerade Goebel fürs Beethoven-Jahr auf die Fahnen geschrieben hat, so weitergeht, wird es ein feines Jahr." Auch SWR2 lobte das Projekt: "Reinhard Goebel verspricht nach diesen beiden Violinkonzerten von Clement noch weitere spannende Erkundungen aus Beethovens Welt."

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.