Mozart's "Ave Verum" is a masterpiece sang all over the world. It was written in peculiar circumstances: in April 1791, Leopold Hofmann, St Stephen's Cathedral Kapellmeister in Vienna, was stroke by a severe illness. Mozart, who had never been interested in religious music, took this opportunity to earn more money, hence why he eventually turned back to this genre - his previous sacred composition being the Great Mass in C-Major, K427 (1782). Mozart's sacred music then reached its climax with his Requiem. Ironically, Hofmann lived longer than Mozart, who died that very same year. (Recording produced with the support of the Cité de la Voix and the Orange Foundation)