It is surprising that the Berlioz Te Deum has been relatively neglected on disc in comparison with his other major works, the more so when it so conveniently fits onto a single CD. This latest version has John Nelson as an incisive, understanding conductor of Berlioz, revelling in the weight of choral sound, balancing his forces beautifully. He is helped by fuller, more brilliant, more detailed digital sound than on previous versions.
The organ sound may be less transparent than it might be, but the authentic French timbre of the Cavaille-Coll organ of the Madeleine in Paris blends beautifully in the ensemble, and Marie-Claire Alain, as one might expect, is the most idiomatic soloist, making her non-French rivals seem rather square by comparison. It makes for luxury casting, too, to have Roberto Alagna as an imaginative, idiomatic tenor soloist in the prayer, ‘Te ergo quaesumus’, warmly persuasive and full of temperament.
An additional plus-point for the new issue, even in relation to Sir Colin Davis’s now classic version for Philips, is not only the fuller, more open recorded sound but the interesting bonus provided. The two extra instrumental movements included here were written by Berlioz expressly for performances celebrating victory, both with military overtones.
It is good to have them both, even if they are intrinsically far less valuable than the usual choral movements. A Prelude, inserted before the third movement, ‘Dignare’, uses one of the work’s main themes in fugato, while at the very end the performance is rounded off with a March for the Presentation of the Colours that in its bold, even corny military style reminds me of the Symphonie funebre et triomphale. On CD one can easily leave either of them out, yet Berlioz, even at his most populist, never fails to grab the ear