In 1558, two years after the last Carolingian emperor Charles V had stepped down from power, he realized his death was near and decided to have a rehearsal for his own funeral. This scene provides the starting point for Simon-Pierre Bestion’s imaginative assemblage of chants and hymns demonstrating Arabic influence in Spain, Requiem mass movements, and much more with his ensemble La Tempête. Bestion explains: “This is … not a historical reconstruction of Charles V’s funeral, but rather a poetic and non-exhaustive testimony to a Spain that lay at the crossroads of two worlds: the medieval world, which symbolically came to an end with La Reconquista … and the world of the Renaissance, symbolized by the simultaneous discovery of the New World. I have drawn on the liturgical structure of the Requiem Mass to create a kind of spiritual and emotional immersion in a musical environment to mark the death of the greatest monarch of the Renaissance.” The final work on the album, Parce mihi, Domine by Cristobal de Morales, concludes Bestion’s imaginary funeral as the only part of the program known definitively to have been performed on the actual occasion.