A voyage of discovery through a lesser-known area of Schubert’s rich and prolific output, this collection comprises seven themed CDs: Transience; Love; Eternity; Heroism; Nature; Celebrations, and Circle of Friends. “Each disc has its share of the treasures,” wrote Gramophone, “The Arnold Schoenberg Choir is a fine body of musicians … they show a virtually unflawed beauty and opulence of tone.” Vocal soloists include Ruth Ziesak, Angelika Kirchschlager, Christoph Prégardien and Robert Holl, and among the featured pianists are András Schiff and Andreas Staier. This complete edition of Schubert’s secular choral works won major prizes in Germany, France, Belgium and Japan on its first release in 1997.

Georg Philipp Telemann's Fortsetzung des Harmonisches Gottesdienstes is a sprawling published collection of sacred cantatas, one cantata for every Sunday and feast day in the church calendar, 72 cantatas in all. This colossal project made its bow in 1731, and is actually a sequel to an equally huge collection that Telemann published in 1725, Harmonischer Gottesdienst. About the only small thing in Fortsetzung are the performance dimensions of the individual cantatas, scored for solo voice, an instrument or two, and continuo.

Die Kombination hat sich bewährt. Joseph Haydn hat in Sir John Eliot Gardiner einen Interpreten gefunden, der mit dem nötigen Ernst und der fachlichen Kompetenz seinen geistlichen Werken nachzuspüren vermag. “Seine Darbietungen haben eine bewegende Stärke und Energie. Die Solisten sind ausgezeichnet. An keiner Stelle zweifelt man an Haydns wahrer Größe”, urteilte die BBC über Gardiners Messen-Projekt.

Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics, Biedermeier poets, and Heine. The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert's Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him.