Gilles: Requiem, Diligam te, Domine

Philippe Herreweghe's 1990 recording of the celebrated Requiem by Jean Gilles marked the work's first modern reading. Performed here from manuscript, shorn of Andre Campra's beefed up orchestration, the work is revealed as a major masterpiece in the style of the French Grand Motet. It was performed for the first time at Gilles's own funeral (because the original commissioner thought it too expensive to perform), but was later sung at the funeral services for the King of Poland, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Louis XV.