ILDEBRANDO PIZZETTI (1880-1968): Messa di Requiem, De profundis, GIAN FRANCESCO MALIPIERO (1882-1973): De profundis (First Recording), GIACOMO PUCCINI (1858-1924): Requiem, JAMES MACMILLAN (b.1959): Miserere, GREGORIO ALLEGRI (1582-1652): Miserere.

Description: This recording is programmed in pairs: a pair of De profundis settings from 1937 (of around five minutes each) by Pizzetti and Malipiero marking the resumption of an old friendship after a falling-out; the 2009 commission by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen to MacMillan for a companion piece to the Allegri Miserere; the final pair is more tenuous: a five-minute setting of just the opening lines of the Latin Requiem written in 1905 to mark the fourth anniversary of Verdi's death and a full-length, 28-minute version from 1922 by Puccini (at whose funeral two years later Pizzetti gave the eulogy). Vasari Singers; Jeremy Backhouse.