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Berlioz - Te Deum / Alagna, M-C. Alain, Orchestre de Paris, Nelson
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Berlioz - Te Deum / Alagna, M-C. Alain, Orchestre Features
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ALAGNA ROBERTO
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MUSICA CLASICA
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INTERNATIONAL
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About Berlioz - Te Deum / Alagna, M-C. Alain, Orchestre
Review Berlioz's Te Deum is a notoriously hard work to record. The Requiem presents problems enough, especially with its four brass bands challenging and echoing across a vast space, but here Berlioz's concept of music as the soul' of a great church, filling and animating lofty architecture, involves organ and orchestra as Pope and Emperor, speaking in dialogue from opposite ends of the nave'. It is also very much an occasional and ceremonial work. I remember it making a splendid inauguration of the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool, and unforgettable in another way was a performance in York Minster when the opening chords between organ and orchestra seemed to be hurled up and down that mighty nave high over the audience's heads. No recording can quite capture such effects, though there are those that manage to come close.One is of a performance in the Church of St John the Divine in New York, which claims to be the largest Gothic space in the world. Dennis Keene conducts a chorus of 140, another chorus of young people for the children's part which Berlioz added later, and an orchestra of over 100 still some way short of the 950 performers Berlioz claimed were in St Eustache at the 1855 première (without the children). The acoustic is welcoming and clear, and does justice to Berlioz's beautifully lucid orchestration better than the recording under Colin Davis, made in 1969. Davis's tenor in the Te ergo quaesumus' was Franco Tagliavini, less stylish than Francisco Araiza for Claudio Abbado in 1982, a version made in St Alban's Cathedral, and colourful if less tremendous than Davis's. In terms of sheer sound, the new version has it over all predecessors. Nelson marshals his forces well, and the French double chorus and the children have a particular cut and thrust in the lofty arena of the Madeleine. There is also the benefit of Marie-Claire Alain at the famous Cavaillé-Coll organ, and beautiful singing by Roberto Alagna in the Te ergo quaesumus'. The textures are subtly balanced, and almost always helped by skilful recording that keeps the sound lucid, as with the soft pizzicato semi-quavers in the Tibi omnes' (though the dancing dotted note figure is partly obscured). Nelson presses the concluding Judex crederis' forward urgently but without artificial tension. Exceptionally, this performance includes the two extra pieces added by Berlioz for the ceremony of the first performance in St Eustache, the Marche pour la présentation des drapeaux' and the almost never heard Prélude' before the Dignare' (Appendix II in the New Berlioz Edition, and indicated by Berlioz to be included only for a ceremonial or military occasion). It is interesting to have them, and they fill up an otherwise rather short disc, though they are superfluous. However, as things stand at present, this new version of the Te Deum is in general the most recommendable. John Warrack -- From International Record Review - subscribe now Product description Used CD
