Royal Requiem

Until the end of the Ancien Régime, one of the main activities of composers – and one of their chief means of subsistence – was that of maître de chapelle or Kapellmeister. For this five-album set, Alpha Classics has assembled eight requiems, from Antoine de Févin’s Mass of the Dead for Anne of Brittany to Luigi Cherubini’s Mass for the return to France of the remains of Louis XVI. (Alpha)