Until the arrival of this disc, practically all I knew about Ferdinand Schubert was that he had tended his younger brother Franz in his final illness, that in his two marriages he had fathered more children even than Bach in his (29, to be precise), and that he had composed a quantity of church music, among which was a Requiem described as his Op. 2 which in fact had been written for him—most willingly—by his 21-year-old brother. It now appears that Ferdinand's indebtedness did not stop there, for the Benedictus of his Hirtenmesse includes the acknowledgement ''after a Hirtenchor by Franz Schubert'', and elsewhere resemblances may be thought to exist with other works of his; the opening of the Benedictus of the Requiem here not the same one as already mentioned—is suspiciously like that of the parallel movement in Mozart's Requiem, and according to Kurt Widmer's note, Austrian folk-tunes also are drawn upon (presumably in the charmingly pastoral, if ingenuous, Hirtenmesse for Christmas 1835). However, it also becomes clear, particularly from the other works on this disc, that Ferdinand—an organ professor at the Vienna School of Church Music as well as a busy headmaster—was no mean composer, fluent melodically and with a striking command of expressive harmony, though less happy at contrapuntal writing, to judge from the ''Quam olim Abrahae'' of the Requiem. Of the three motets here—the Ave Maria for a cappella choir, the others accompanied by a wind ensemble—the Salve regina is outstanding. Louis Devos draws satisfying musicianly performances from his well-matched soloists, a splendidly freshvoiced choir and an excellent period-instrument group (in which Paul Dombrecht's distinguished oboe playing must be mentioned); and the recording is above criticism except in Venisancte spiritus, where reverberant acoustics make the brass overwhelm the four solo singers.'