François-Joseph Gossec Lacrimosa (soprano I & II) from Requiem (Missa pro Defunctis, 1760) Bernadette Degelin, soprano I Greta de Reyghere, soprano II Musica Polyphonica Louis Devos, conductor Picture: Venice, Scuola del Pianto François-Joseph Gossec was the first and certainly the most constant illustrator for ‘Civic Occasions’ of the French Revolution [...]. Gossec’s Requiem (Missa pro Defunctis) was first played for the Jacobins ot the rue Saint-Jacques, and was often performed until the Revolution, especially at the Concerts Spirituels [...]. The Requiem was regarded as the foremost liturgical piece of its time, and was played at countless concerts [...]. According to Hartmut Krone’s thorough study, it is established that Mozart met Gossec during his stays in Paris in 1763-64 and 1766. Mozart wrote in a letter to his father: ‘Gossec is my very good friend’. Krone’s study most pertinently observes the abundance of passages where a parallel may be drawn between Gossec’s Requiem and Mozart’s Requiem and his Great Mass in C minor. [...] The poignant chromatics in Gossec’s admirable Lacrimosa is strikingly reminiscent of Mozart’s Recordare. In this re-use of materials there is no plagiarism, but the expression of admiration and respect for an honoured colleague; furthermore, as Mozart recalls in a letter to his father in April 1783, it was a means of preserving a tradition of sacred music. [...] Gossec’s Requiem was regarded by so many, even Berlioz, as a model of its kind. Louis Devos* *Louis Devos edited a new version of Gossec’s Requiem, based on Gossec' autograph manuscripts. This version, recorded by Devos in 1986, is profoundly different from the printed version of 1774.