Here is a curious beast. The event was the anniversary (in 2010) of the death of Chopin (in 1849). Chopin’s wish was to have Mozart’s Requiem performed for his exequies and so it is here, by Philippe Herreweghe and forces from France, Belgium and Italy. The setting is a full liturgical service at the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, thus placing the familiar music of the Requiem among the chanted Latin Mass for the Dead. The performance itself is fine: the period instruments of the Champs-Elysées Orchestra provide a mellow accompaniment to the focused singing of the two choruses and as decent a row of soloists as might be expected. The liturgical aspect of the performance is less satisfactory, with celebrant Fr Kazimierz Szymonik in less than mellifluous voice. The lighting rig is all too obvious in the picture (the lighting itself is surely too bright for a Requiem service and distracts from the rather wonderful church itself) and the many microphones make the production look more like a recording session than a Catholic rite.

The natural comparison is with Georg Solti’s performance from St Stephen’s, Vienna, on the 1991 bicentenary of Mozart’s own death. Similarities are few, however. Whereas the Polish service is static, the greater space of Vienna’s Cathedral allows the full motion and drama of the Mass to unfold. The one is in Latin (with a Polish preamble), the other in (spoken) German; Herreweghe opts, naturally enough, for the ‘traditional’ Süssmayr completion while Solti adopts HC Robbins Landon’s realisation of Eybler’s abandoned attempt to finish Mozart’s incomplete work. And Solti’s line-up of soloists – Auger, Bartoli, Cole, Pape – and the Vienna Phil is unbeatably starry. The Warsaw performance is a moving if flawed souvenir d’occasion while the Viennese one is perhaps the greater all-round achievement. Whether either is best served by DVD is another matter: the Solti, at least, is also available on audio-only CD.