Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was still a young composer honeymooning in Alsace and the Black Forest when he set Psalm 42 “As the hart pants” to music. For Robert Schumann, the work quite simply represented the “highest level (…) ever achieved by modern sacred music”. Indeed, Mendelssohn Bartholdy managed to produce what for many choirs is a favourite piece, though it is not without its pitfalls. One example is the final chorus, during which the solo soprano must float clear as a bell above the perfectly pitched male voices. Gregor Meyer, who conducts the famous Gewandhaus Choir, combines the psalm with the tonally colourful, rarely heard requiem by the French composer Louis Théodore Gouvy. This substantial work, lasting around an hour, was written in 1874 at the same time as Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, although Gouvy would not have known the latter. Having had his work performed at his own expense in Paris, the composer lived to see two further performances in the Gürzenich in Cologne, one in Saint-Pantaléon in France and one in Mönchengladbach. After these, it seems the Requiem was not performed again during Gouvy’s lifetime and was forgotten. A more than worthwhile (re-) discovery!