Le Concert Spirituel . Hervé Niquet

The first minute of Charpentier's 'Te Deum' is probably familiar to everyone. For many years the celebratory opening prelude, with its blazing trumpets, was used as the signature tune for the Eurovision broadcasts. Few people realise that after this short prelude, the music displays an amazingly wide range of emotions and affections in homage to God and the Sun King. Charpentier's eleven masses are permanent fixtures in the great archives of early music. Specialist ensembles like Le Concert Spirituel with their hyper-energetic conductor Hervé Niquet are true advocates of this repertoire, which reveals itself to be unexpectedly versatile and particularly intimate. In Charpentier's last mass, no superfluous glory is exhibited, but rather a great deal of finesse and tranquillity; it is as if he were composing for the Versailles chapel rather than Notre Dame Cathedral. This clearly demonstrates that the French Baroque repertoire is an endless treasure trove which we have only just begun to explore.