Performed by Wells Cathedral Oratorio Society and The English Chamber Orchestra.

'Didn't I tell you that I composed the Requiem for myself?'

Mozart may (or may not) have spoken those words on his death bed, but his choral masterpiece, the Requiem, commissioned by a mysterious cloaked figure, certainly offers a transfiguring experience. Written in the last month of Mozart's life, it contrasts the fear of death with radiant hope and balances dark drama with sublime simplicity.

The Mass in B flat major by Joseph Haydn is known under the name "Theresienmesse." The reason for this epithet has to this day not been clarified, but it could have to do with a performance of this Mass in Vienna in May 1800, probably in the presence of the Empress Marie Therese. It is an extraordinarily beautiful work with fugues, arias, florid bel canto lines, and dramatic contrasts.