Cherubini’s Requiem Mass in C minor was composed in 1816 at the request of Louis XVIII for a memorial service for Louis XVI, but it did not gain much more than passing recognition until it was again performed at the funeral service of Méhul in 1818. It was by all means the best Requiem Mass produced in France in many years and one which deserved not merely local but general recognition. The work is soulful and expressive, though Cherubini was restrained in his utterance. He was given to using short, simple themes, which, however, are not only beautiful, but artistically expressive. The general tone of the work is gloomy and sadly resigned, dwelling on the thought of death as man’s inevitable destiny. The first ray of hope or light comes with the words--_ad te omnis caro veniet_, but on the whole the dark tints prevail throughout this masterful and artistic work and give it a peculiar force which few other ‘masses for the dead’ have attained. Cherubini’s second _Requiem_ in D minor, written in 1836, though not unlike the first both as to musical material and coloring, is a far less important work. The fact that it was written entirely for male voices makes it somewhat individual in character, but although numerous Requiems have appeared for male voices, they are no longer performed. This one has been arranged for the usual mixed voices. Masses.--The ‘D minor Mass,’ composed in 1821, is the best of his masses and can easily be classed with his two famous Requiems. It is dignified, impressive, and at times tinged with deep sorrow. As in the Requiems, so also here, there is much impressive fugal writing, so characteristic of Cherubini. There are also more passages for solo voices, which at times employ a form of intonation which is almost recitative. The work is not given as frequently as it deserves. A fragment of another mass written in 1806 and known as the ‘Eight-voiced Credo’ (_a cappella_) is heard much more frequently of late, though it has by no means the power of the preceding. The close, _Et vitam venturi sæculi_, is a masterpiece of contrapuntal writing which more than compensates for the lack of content in the other numbers. The fact that the form of liturgy used at the French court was peculiar to that environment accounts for the fragments left by Cherubini, which were evidently used in place of an entire mass.