“The greatest of the greatest of his work” wrote Berlioz after hearing Cherubini’s Requiem Mass. Though born in Italy, Luigi Cherubini, belonged to the French school of composition, and was a dominant musical figure there for over half a century. Best known as a composer of opera and sacred music, the Requiem Mass of 1816 became his most frequently performed work. Commissioned by the French government as a Requiem for Louis XVI, it omits the conventional soloists, the directness of the religious communication avoiding any unnecessary embellishments. The Funeral March, that completes the disc, is in grand ceremonial style and was composed in 1820.