GRANDEUR AN.EREMONIAL WEIGHT IN BliER'S STIRRING REQUIEM, CAUGHT HERE IN SUPERB LIVE PERFORMANCES Jordi Sava', brings extra authenticity to his Biber Requiem by recording in possibly its original venue

Battalia a 10. Requiem a 15a 01111.111 aCapella Reial de Catalunya; Le Concert des Nations / Jordi Savall Alia Vox 0 AV9825 (57 minutes: DDD) aRecorded live at Salzburg Cathedral during the Pfingsten Baroque Festival on May 24, 1999. Text and translation included

Requiem — selected comparisons:

KOOpMall (9/94) (ER,47) 4509-91725-2 Leonhardt (8/96) (DIM) 05472-77344-2

Not that many composers have written more than one Requiem, and Biber, the brilliant 17th-century violinist, is probably one of the last you would expect to be among them. Yet he was for some years Kapellmeister to the Archbishop of Salzburg, and it is thought that his 45-minute Requiem in A major may well have been composed for the funeral of Archbishop Maximilian Gandolph in 1687.

It is a strangely cheerful work when compared to his later and darker F minor setting, with two persistent trumpets adding a festive and sometimes military feel, and the `Osanna' displaying an almost disconcertingly dancelike lilt. But, as the booklet notes point out, the Archbishop's funeral would have been an occasion of civic thanksgiving for a life of public and Christian service, and the work's deeper moments tend to respond more to the idea of the afterlife than of the grave. Most striking of all is the 'Dona eis requiem' section, which has something of the same hauntingly tuneful tenderness as the 'Dona nobis pacem' of Beethoven's Missa solemnis.

Jordi Savall's new recording has the outstanding advantage of having been made in Salzburg Cathedral, the building for which the piece may have been written. The booklet prints not only a 17th-century engraving of the building's interior in which musicians can be seen on the cathedral floor and in the four organ lofts above, but also photographs of their modern counterparts occupying the same positions.

The results are certainly atmospheric; the cathedral has an enormous acoustic in which Savall, with customary concern for beauty of sound, builds a performance of swelling grandeur and imposing ceremonial weight. Unfortunately, it also makes for a murky texture and places restrictions on tempi and interpretative detail which mean that the clearer-lined recordings directed by Ton Koopman and Gustav Leonhardt probably offer a better introduction to the work; Leonhardt, in particular, does not waste the opportunity to probe its meaning more deeply. Savall's account is nevertheless quite an experience, and there may well be a case for wanting his and Leonhardt's. Alia Vox's coupling is also unique, though the second piece is hardly unknown, and Savall's rendering of the famous Battalia, despite being recorded in a more manageable acoustic, is among the more polite on record. Lindsay Kemp