Eurovision And Beyond

This is a lovely disk of the music of Charpentier. The performers are the Choeur de Chambre de Namur, Les Agremens and La Fenice under the direction of Jean Tubery. There are two works featured on the disk, the famous Te Deum and a Messe pour plusieurs instruments au lieu des orgues. As you can see it is all very French. Theya re two quite contrasting pieces from 17th century France. The Te Deum is famous these days because of the appropriation of the opening thems as the signature tune for Eurovision and the rest of the piece tends to continue in that ceremonial very public guise with a lot of pomp and circumstance. The Messe however is a much more sober liturgical piece with almost gregorian style chanting of the sacred texts interspersed with instrumental interludes of a reflective nature. All recorded in a wonderfully resonant and atmospheric church acoustic. The perfomances are beautifully played and sung. An intriguing mix of the archaic and modern.