Requiem – Richter Frantiek Xaver – CD

A contemporary account describes F. X. Richter, the eighty-year-old Kapellmeister of Strasbourg Cathedral, reviewing the score of the funeral music he had written for his own burial shortly before his death. His Requiem and other funeral work were composed in Strasbourg, where Richter worked from 1769, while the Sinfonia con fuga was written in Mannheim. A distinguished figure among composers of the so-called Czech musical emigration, Richter combined masterful counterpoint learned from J. J. Fux in Vienna with elements of Neapolitan opera and the Mannheim school. Known as a guardian of the true church style at a time when the galant style was moving towards Classicism, he remains insufficiently known, particularly for his major vocal works. Czech Ensemble Baroque, one of the leading ensembles devoted to his musical legacy, presents the premiere recording of the Requiem with which Richter accompanied his own soul into eternity.