Pygmalion toured Mozart’s Requiem last year, including a well-received visit to the Proms. Their interpretation is preserved here on a recording with largely the same cast as that Albert Hall performance – with Ying Fang replacing soprano Erin Morley and the addition of treble Chadi Lazreq.

This is a Requiem that goes all out for dramatic effect, the explosive choral consonants of the opening matched by acutely focused string syncopations. At the same time the meticulous preparation of all concerned brings dividends in an almost palpable response to the expressive range of the work. The effect is somewhere between the musicological fidelity of John Butt’s Dunedin Consort and the overt theatricality of Teodor Currentzis’s MusicAeterna. You’ll go far to hear a swifter ‘Dies irae’, for example, or a more urgently delivered ‘Tuba mirum’. The ‘Rex tremendae’, on the other hand, has the requisite breadth, while the ‘Lacrymosa’ and ‘Hostias’ are welcome oases of repose.

The edition used is the standard Süssmayr completion of 1792, give or take one or two tweaks that are unlikely to discombobulate any but hardened purists. What makes this Requiem unique, however, is the context in which it is placed. In among its succession of movements are interpolated (mostly) sacred pieces, all of them nominally by Mozart, even if they depart from his supposed intentions. Ach zu kurz is a playful canon that circles back over itself even as it declaims ‘Alas! Our lives are too short’. A Kyrie (sung to the words of the Miserere) hints at the contrapuntal austerity of the Requiem from a distance of two decades, while the bass aria ‘Ne pulvis’ fits Latin words to a number from the Thamos incidental music, in so doing rousing the Commendatore from his D minor depths. A solfeggio turns out to be a dry run at the ‘Christe’ from the C minor Mass, while the equally ravishing Adagio from the Gran Partita is adapted into an unlikely hymn of praise. At least ‘O Gottes Lamm’ is echt Mozart through and through – one of only two contributions he made to the newly required repertoire for congregational church songs in the vernacular. The whole is topped and tailed by the plainchant ‘In paradisum’, sung beautifully by the treble Chadi Lazreq. Sadly missing is the Meistermusik – a choral adaptation of the Masonic Funeral Music – which had been performed in the concerts. Nevertheless, this is a Requiem to reckon with, and a delicious opportunity to hear some real Mozart rarities.