The pieces on these discs typify rather neatly two of Berlioz’s chief characteristics: his capacity to perplex, astound and deafen the multitudes, and his equal ability to touch the inner imagination of the listener with the lightest of hands. The two aspects correspond roughly to the public and private Berlioz.The public Berlioz gets a good airing here. The earliest piece is the Scène Héroïque, known as La Révolution grecque, which he wrote at the end of 1825, around his 22nd birthday. As Hugh Macdonald, general editor of The New Berlioz Edition says, it looks back to the revolutionary choruses of the 1790s with its cries of ‘victoire’ and ‘triomphe’ and this may be one reason why, after one performance in 1828, Berlioz claimed to have destroyed it – a claim he also made for the Messe solennelle written in 1824, but which has also survived. La Révolution is nothing like so interesting as the Mass, either for what it is or for what it portends, but there are the odd characteristic touches, such as the sudden emergence of soft, pliant material out of rumbustious noise. The energy, too, is of a voltage way above the ordinary for 1820s France, and Michel Plasson and his forces respond well. But unlike the Mass, this work lacks distinctive melodic material, even if the central ‘Prière’ has some lovely sounds.

Of the remaining public pieces, the Chant des chemins de fer is highly entertaining and wonderfully fit for its purpose – the inauguration of the Paris-Lille railway line in 1846. Writing the piece took Berlioz either three whole nights, or three hours (voice parts) and one night (instrumentation), depending on which version you like to believe. Certainly one doesn’t get the impression he agonised over it, and its directness is very much part of its charm – although what I take to be the odd encouraging vocals from the chorus master don’t add anything of value. The Chanson à boire is fun, the Chant guerrier downright weird, with rhythms and phrasing that barely make sense today. Much the finest work of all is Le Cinq mai, written in 1835 to commemorate the death of Napoleon. Greeks, booze and railways were one thing, the Emperor quite another, and Berlioz’s admiration is reflected in the music’s brooding intensity. He conducted it with regular success in his concerts despite what he called the ‘abominable’ literary quality of the verse, and despite what one sour reviewer referred to as the novel absence of bass drum and ophicleides.

The excellent Chant sacré comes somewhere between being wholly public and wholly private. And it may be a problem for critics who, overtaxed by the bicentenary celebrations, have claimed Berlioz was unable to write a good tune. Most of the private pieces are familiar enough, and personally I can never hear Sara la baigneuse too often (soft porn transmuted into high art), while Le ballet des ombres (incidentally, one of Henri Dutilleux’s favourite pieces) creates a world unlike any other.

The choir Les Eléments sing with vigour and precision and the sopranos make a lovely sound. Plaudits, too, to David Bismuth for some virtuoso piano playing. As so often, I feel the chorus is placed too far from the microphone, and whereas in the pieces with piano this is not a problem, against the orchestra many of the words are really hard to catch. The three male soloists are placed further forward and all do well, even if Nicolas Rivenq’s voice is a little dry at climaxes. Laurent Naouri is superb, Rolando Villazón exciting, with only very occasional tuning trouble. All in all, these discs, giving us over an hour of Berlioz not available elsewhere in the catalogue, are very welcome.