Despite the cheesy cover design, this is a compilation that starts out with a big advantage: it offers a consistent musical point of view. The various singers, choirs, and orchestras are conducted by Michel Corboz, a veteran Swiss-born musician who has been active in Lausanne and in Lisbon, Portugal, and whose choruses have spawned an impressive number of European vocal careers. The reason is that Corboz forges a rich yet precise blend in all the vocal music he conducts. In some of the earlier music on the program here, his style sounds almost luxuriant; with the later music, such as the selections by Fauré, it seems calm and detached. But his recordings are of consistently high quality, and these (save perhaps for the overdone "Laudamus te" from the Bach Mass in B minor from a young Sandrine Piau) are no exception. The program is unusual, with many pieces setting texts from the Catholic mass and the last part of the program devoted mostly to the Requiem mass. There is a certain somberness to the collection, but these nineteenth century settings are more concerned with what would now be called spirituality than with funereal sentiments. The listener looking for vocal and choral pieces that convey a sense of calm will find them here, and performance of the Mozart Requiem in D minor, K. 626, from which the last two tracks are taken is one of the all-time greats; sample the unbearably rich vocal quartets in the Recordare, track 15. Another bonus is the inclusion of two tracks from the fairly obscure Requiem of Portuguese composer João Domingos Bomtempo (whose name -- he should have been a conductor! -- is inaccurately rendered in the rudimentary packaging), a pleasant work that views the Viennese Classical style from a distance. The packaging gives no clue at all to the origins of these works other than performance marks of 1989 and 1996; some of the selections seem to be older than that, and the sound environments are inconsistent. Nevertheless, this is an example of a crossover-ready compilation that can lead listeners to some really distinctive performances. ~ James Manheim, All Music Guide
