Charpentier’s Christmas music represents some of the composer’s richest creations‚ selected works of which William Christie explored in the early­to­mid 1980s for Harmonia Mundi. Surprisingly perhaps‚ the Messe de Minuit was not one of them‚ though the fine oratorio ‘In Nativitatem’ opened the ears of many to Charpentier’s uniquely expectant and shimmering narrative of Advent introspection‚ angelic exclamation and awe­struck adoration. On re­acquaintance (although my copy of the HM recording makes an habitual appearance at Christmas)‚ this is indeed a work of exceptionally lucid dramatic and contemplative power. Catherine Cessac writes deftly in her excellent note of the ‘superb harmonic chiaroscuro which shades into eloquent silence on the threshold of the life that is about to come into the world’‚ and it is this incandescent mystery which Christie commands in both old and new performances. This latest one is both more refined in tonal panache and more sophisticated in gestural variety. The succinct bite of ‘Veni‚ veni’ leaps out of the luxuriant‚ suspended animation of ‘Memorare’‚ where previously a less contrasted‚ more luminous evocation of the night skies captured the imagination. This is altogether a more suave and urgent account but it exhibits rather less of its bright­eyed stillness and pioneering spirit of the original. The quite delectable ‘Et in terra pax’ (a passage with the type of intensity Charpentier employs supremely in Le reniement de St Pierre) conveys little of its transient magic here. The soloists and choir are also less fluidly juxtaposed in the new version. The Jesuit fathers knew their man when they appointed Charpentier to the Parisian Church of Saint­Louis in the 1690s‚ a fertile decade which reaped further rewards in the imploring and attractive Midnight Mass‚ a work which celebrates Christmas with unabashed reference to a sweet repository of carolsÊ–Êmelodies Charpentier manipulates with the skill of the true populist. Yet never far away is the stamp of his own compositional identity‚ such as the munificence of the Credo or tender asides of the Agnus dei. Christie injects just the right blend of sprightly secularity into proceedings while responding brilliantly to quicksilver mood changes. The Mass is indeed given a commanding and colourful performance‚ but the best music is found in In Nativitatem‚ where Christie’s new recording fails to supersede the exceptional‚ glowing beauty of the 1983 reading.