Album: Choir of New College Oxford, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Edward Higginbottom, Mozart: Requiem (Novum)

Thanks partly to the secrecy of its commission, and partly to his having died before its completion, Mozart's Requiem is one of music's most tantalising pieces, prompting eternal dispute as to which parts were written by Mozart.

Edward Higginbottom has opted to ignore the plethora of more recent completions in favour of Süssmayr's "official" version, his faithfulness extending to drawing individual soloists from the choir, even using male voices for the higher parts. It's an interesting exercise which perhaps pays greatest dividends in the "Benedictus" section employing just the quartet of soloists.

DOWNLOAD THIS: Benedictus; Sequenz; Communio