The Missa Solemnis is one of Beethoven’s great works from the height of his composing career: nothing he composed surpasses it for scale, sincerity or sheer vision.

Recorded live at the BBC Proms in 1982, this concert was one of the highlights of Georg Solti’s final season as LPO Principal Conductor: a memorable performance described by mezzo soprano Doris Soffel upon hearing the master as the conductor’s ‘love-declaration to Beethoven’.

Solti, an exclusive Decca artist, was one of the most influential and most recorded conductors of the 20th century. It was with his recordings of Beethoven with the LPO in the early 1950s that his career first gathered momentum.

Solti had a great affinity with the Missa Solemnis on the concert stage and in recordings. He recorded it twice, once with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1978) and later a live recording with the Berlin Philharmonic (1994), both only currently available digitally or as part of a 25CD (Berlin) or 54CD (Chicago) box set.

In this live Proms recording, Solti demonstrates his mastery of the large-scale choral genre, and of making the most of the occasion - this performance is full of calming reverence.

The recording features an outstanding array of soloists representing some of the finest voices of the late 20th century.