I do not know so many recordings of the Mozart Requiem, but I got curious and went to listen a little to Herreweghe (on Spotify). Very beautiful music-making, and they really manage to turn ones attention to wealth of interesting things going on deep into the weave of the music.
What I had slightly against it was the relatively large amount of reverberation, some of it prolly added digitally (maybe worsened by Spotify): Well, nothing extreme, and where do you find completely un-processed commercial recordings these days?
Also there was rather little sense of drama for a work like this, IMO: Not much
wrath in the Dies Irae, so to speak. Compare for example with this famous 1953 Scherchen recording, between 9 and 10 minutes into the piece ( ideally one should listen from the beginning for the sake of contrast etc). What? Yes it is mono.
The ideal
stereo sound for a work like this? I may be a tad perverted but I like sonics of the live version that is viewed 11,5 million times on youtube. (performers not credited). The relative dryness of sound and the big stereo spread is very entertaining. Of course this is not what you hear in the concert hall (unless perhaps if you are the conductor at a free-air performance). All in all rather resemblant of the typical early stereo lp sound.
More OT: Back to the mentioned 1953 mono version! Everybody who has a turntable I recommend to find an original copy of this (Westminster WL5233)* to include in ones collection (in addition to modern versions, of course). Not only because of the unique interpretation, but also because of its sound. Amazing what they managed to squeeze into one single mono track, and it is nice to have as a documentation for several reasons. (The LP sounds better than what you hear on youtube, and remember: everything was made using tubes). True, the bass is exaggerated on the LP, prolly (mostly) because the record is not mastered after the RIAA standard, which only a few years later became universally accepted, I think A horror to the audiophile? It should not be IMO, after all tonal balance in any recording situation can be all over the place dependent mic or instrument placement (or in concert: where your seat is located etc). But in the long run it is/was great to have a standard for pre-emphasing, obviously. (On youtube too much of the bass is removed, along with some of the charm).
Potentially of interest to some of the pirates: This WL5233 recording was made by the legendary French sound engineer André Charlin, according to this discography
http://www.svalander.se/charlin/rec11aeng.htm (Charlin did not typically work for Westminster). Well, to be honest, some other Westminster monos from the same time may sound even better (less congested, without the bass overweight), but they are OTOH typically pure orchestral recordings, the addition of choir and soloist singers made things more difficult, of course.(Some of the best Westminster recordings from this period were issued in their Laboratory Series: Audiophile records from before the stereo age! They are well worth investigating.
*avoid the same conductor’s stereo version on the same label.
