Just months after I reviewed Antoni Wit’s marvellous 2012 Naxos recording of Dvořák’s Requiem, along comes another excellent recording. This one was made in Antwerp in 2014 under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe and is a successor to his acclaimed Dvořák Stabat mater (7/13), sharing two of the same soloists. Frankly, in terms of interpretation and quality of execution, there is little to choose between Wit and Herreweghe, although the latter takes about five minutes less than Wit and has a tighter grip on the work’s dramatic energy. The engineering in both vividly captures the full-bodied scoring. The organ is more prominent under Wit, whereas Herreweghe’s balance makes more of the bass clarinet, tam-tam and bells.

Finding the English choral scene a welcome contrast to the destructive criticism he was experiencing in central Europe, Dvořák grasped Birmingham’s 1890 oratorio commission (The Dream of Gerontius having been briefly considered), producing a monumentally opulent Requiem. Dvořák was no stranger to mourning (he and his wife buried three of their nine offspring), and death is omni-present, identified by a short, chromatic motif which permeates the music’s sinews.

Herreweghe evokes the full range of this multi-layered piece. His strings and harp really shimmer at the start of the Offertorium and he achieves a chilling intensity at the opening of the ‘Tuba mirum’, with the trumpets’ and tam-tam’s eerie premonitions of Mahler. In the ‘Pie Jesu’ the horns and woodwind glow warmly before the soprano, alto and tenor soloists take over and sag in pitch a fraction. Generally, though, the solo quartet is well balanced.