FRANZ VON SUPPÉ (1819-1895): Requiem in D Minor.

Description: Written upon the death of his patron and friend, conductor Franz Pokorny, this large-scale, 74-minute work of 1855 begins with Mozart's model of the sacred content but bursts the boundarys of the genre with a huge Romantic orchestra (how often do you hear four horns in Romantic pastoral cry in a sacred work like this?) which plainly pointed the way toward Verdi's overwhelming Requiem some 15 years later. Unlike the more Classically oriented Bottesini below, the Dies irae here approaches Verdian cataclysm yet there are also moments of almost chamber-music transparency. Marie Fajtová (soprano), Franziska Gottwald (alto), Tomislav Muzek (tenor), Labert Pesendorfer (bass), Munich Philharmonic Choir, Philharmonie Festiva;  Gerd Schaller.