The most lavish of Charpentier’s four extant Te Deum settings was for an unknown occasion in 1692; there is an unsubstantiated theory that it might have celebrated the Grand Alliance’s victory at the battle of Steenkerque during the Nine Years’ War. More certainly, in the modern age it has become enshrined as Charpentier’s most popular work. Almost every French baroque group under the sun (and plenty of others) has recorded the Eurovision-connected canticle, and its continuing appeal is easy to understand. The burgeoning discography is further expanded by Ensemble Les Surprises, whose interpretation is preceded by a solo timpanist’s military swagger. There is fluency and panache in the sequence of concise and flowing movements, and interspersed amid the grandeur accomplished soloists emerge from the choir for moments of intimacy: the trio of high tenor, baritone and bass (‘Te per orbem terrarum’) is sung gorgeously, and dulcet soprano Jehanne Amzal is paired with soft recorders, gamba, theorbo and organ (‘Te ergo quaesumus’). Short and lively tutti sections are light-footed if occasionally a touch hurried.

The other main attraction is the premiere recording of an elaborate setting by Desmarest. Preserved solely in the library of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, maybe it was composed for a grand ceremonial service when Princess Marie Leszczyńska was passing through the court of Lorraine on her way to marry Louis XV in 1725. A brightly dancelike D major prelude garnished with trumpets and timpani leads straight into a brief soprano solo that tees up a splendid chorus. Thereafter, almost all of Desmarest’s canticle is constructed upon solo arias, particularly the marvellous sequence at its heart: Eugénie Lefebvre’s extrovert ‘Tu rex gloriae, Christe’ (featuring supple obbligato cello), Amzal’s plaintive ‘Tu, ad liberandum suscepturus hominem’ (with softly sustained strings), bass Jean-Christophe Lanièce’s rumbustious ‘Tu, devicto mortis aculeo’ (angular violins and oboe) and high tenor François-Olivier Jean’s honeyed ‘Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes’ (with lyrical recorder) are followed by the penitential slow chorus ‘Te ergo quaesumus’. Most numbers last little over a minute, yet Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas’s sculpted performance cultivates satisfying momentum and continuity.