There is an oddity in Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem, in that the Lutheran tradition does not use the term ‘Requiem’. The composer was aware that the piece was fated to be a concert, rather than liturgical, work. Lionel Meunier and programme curator Jérôme Lejeune have put together a sequence of 17th-century pieces that use the same texts as Brahms did – works by such relatively obscure composers as Andreas Scharmann, Christian Geis, Tobias Michael, Andreas Hammerschmidt; but the small miracle of the recording is that it all seems to point forward ineluctably to Brahms, even as Vox Luminis sing the original scores with precision and authenticity. If it were mere musicological excavation, it would be interesting, but ultimately dry and discursive. These performances bring the music to vivid and devout life.

Vox Luminis, Tuomo Suni; Johannes Frisch (vn), Antina Hugosson; Raquel Massadas (va), Nicholas Milne; Andreas Linos (tenor viol), Sarah van Oudenhove (bass viol), James Munro (violone), Bart Jacobs (org) / Lionel Meunier (dir) Ricercar RIC445 [78:80] ★★★★