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"The present recording is the fruit and consequence of a project that the Brühl Castle Concerts and the Capella Augustina have initiated for several years as part of their Haydn Festival. We commission compositions that deal with the works of Joseph Haydn and are explicitly written for an orchestra with period instruments in 2018, the commission went to the Spanish composer José Maria Sánchez-Verdú, by whom I had already premiered a highly interesting, fantastically orchestrated work some time before. Sanchez-Verdu, himself a native of Andalusia, chose to compose 'Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuz'. Haydn famously wrote the piece for a special Good Friday Passion liturgy in Cadiz. Sánchez-Verdú wrote 'Sheba' (the Hebrew word for 'seven') as interludes to Haydn's work. Each of the 7 sonatas is followed by a movement of about 2-3 minutes, which acts as a commentary, exegesis, continuation or even antithesis of Haydn's pieces. The concluding seventh movement leads directly into the final earthquake Sometimes it is a single sound, then again a movement impulse or just a gesture in Haydn's work that is inspiration and starting point for him For him, the historical instrumentation was both an incentive and a mission." - Andreas Spering (From the liner notes)