Berlioz Te Deum

This may not be the most subtle piece ever written, but it's a superb shout - there were 950 performers at the first performance in St Eustache, and probably about 1250 for the closing of the Paris "Universal Exhibition" in 1855. I'll give you there are some pretty appalling bits (particularly the inability to finish the piece, that would make even Beethoven blush!), but there are also some wonderful moments; e.g. in the "Tibi omnes", the wonderful crescendi on the words "Sanctus, sanctus...", building to a quite orgasmic climax on "Pleni sunt coeli..."; the "Te ergo quaesumus" is a beautiful imploring prayer.

Anyway, I've not had a CD version, so thought I'd get the Nelson/Alagna/M-C Alain version (Virgin Classics), garlanded with stars and paudits and reduced to £8 in the Britannia sale.

Listened to it tonight, and.
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.UNMITIGATED, UNADULTERATED, SHITE

Oh let me enumerate it's travesties....but where to begin?

I don't know what the IRR reviewer was listening to, but to say "In terms of sheer sound, the new version has it over all predecessors" requires a level of deafness beyond simple cloth-earedness (although admittedly I'm only comparing to the Colin Davis/LSO/Philips LP I've had for years). The sound is incredibly closed in....the mikes must have been wrapped in tissue paper to get such a crap, rattly, distorted sound....the orchestra sounds as if it's in the next county....which is just as well because the engineers have given the tonal balance the subltety, warmth and ambience of razor-wire! But then the side-drums sound as if they've been recorded in a bath-room. At one point they even manage to get the first violins on the right hand side of the soundstage! I doubt I have a worse engineered CD in my collection...and I've heard better sound from some recordings from the '40s (let alone one I heard recently from 1906)!

The (left hand) choir has at least one tenor/baritone with all the tonal purity of a buzz-saw (reminds me of the 80-year old in the church choir when I was a nipper). The rest of them come in when they feel like....just as long as it's not any time close to the orchestral entries.

At every possible moment when the conductor could ask for a pause/breath to give the forthcoming entry some semblance of dramatic weight (and if this piece is not dramatic then it's nothing)....NO....charge on through with a scouting party of motley choir members, with the rest of them following through the breach in half a beat or so. So the Observer critic who reckoned "Nelson highlights the grandeur of the masterpiece while removing any potential vulgarity, with his delicate ear for undistorted power" should probably go back to reviewing "S club 7", to which (s)he is clearly far more suited!

What about the sainted Alagna in that beautiful "Te ergo quaesumus"? After all, the French romantic repertoire is his speciality. Well, if we forget about the fact that about 1/4 of his notes are out of tune, and the melody has as much shape as lumpy custard, he does give it a bit of rustic humanity to the pleading....I guess a bit like Joe Grundy trying to wheedle another free pint out of Sid! Franco Tagliavini (on the Davis recording) was criticised for being a bit too operatic, but that had a level of sensitivity and pathos Alagna wouldn't recognise here if it smacked him in the face.

The final climaxes, with the trumpets and cymbals piling in with the massed ranks of side-drums, followed by the organ (as I said, not particularly subtle, but tremendous fun when done properly) are just pathetic. The cymbals are about as resounding as wet farts, and the whole thing is so pushed it falls over itself in mindless banality.

The other point of interest in this recording is that it includes two instrumental movements intended for use when the Te Deum is used in the context of a military celebration, which I've never heard before. I now know why! Quite dreadful and out of keeping with the rest of the piece (even though using the opening theme). The engineers pull another masterstroke in the "Presentation of the colours", when the orchestra (which remember is still in the next county...or at the very least the wrong end of a telescope) is reinforced by 12 harps - which jump straight out of the speakers at you. There's unsubtle...then there's this .

The only redeeming feature I can find is the authority given by the Cavaille-Coll organ of the Madeleine. I'm not even convinced by M-C Alain's playing throughout - some places it sounds just right, but in others it's so foresquare she sounds bored out of her mind.

Now maybe I'm too familiar with one interpretation - I've actually only ever heard it performed by Colin Davis: twice live, and that classic Philips/LSO recording on vinyl - but he's always made it sound a quite stunning piece, even the more banal bits just sweep you along.

This recording is just a mess from beginning to end. Get the Colin Davis!

 

So, er, we should avoid that one then, Graham? My sole experience is a live performance in Melbourne, which, as you say, was a wonderful shout, delivered with all the subtlety of a smack in the teeth with a sledgehammer. When they all got going together, they just about blew you out of your seat. Since then, I've always thought of this music that way; there is just some music that is meant to be enjoyed live, raw and bleeding as it were, and is simply not amenable to repeated hearing of recordings (like Basler Fasnacht music (it's the season, ouch!)).

This is proof, as if any were needed, that recordings, like equipment, are personal choices, and critics are only guides at best. (Actually, they're worse than that - I'm convinced that music critics, like art, book, film and theatre critics, write only to show how clever and profound they are, rather than to inform). Anyway, such criticisms could never be levelled at your piece, which both informs and entertains!

 

Graham, if you were to find yourself in the employment of the Observer, i might take to buying newspapers again.

 

Te Deum by name - Tedium by nature ?

 

This seems too good to be true! If the record is half as bad as what you say it is, I'll go and buy it!!

I always detested Berlioz, and I like a laugh. Is it as funnt as you say, or are you being funny?

 

The word 'bad' is not mentioned in Graham's review... does he like it or not?

 

I had the opportunity to hear the recording when Graham was here and I must say that the sound quality was strange. I suppose the mixing was done with care since certain groups of instruments were louder than others in some parts and nearly inexistenting in other parts. The timing between the choir was sometimes out of place and so on.
One thing stroke me was the photo of the conductor smiling as if he just won the national lottery. ..or was he happy to have finished the recording of the CD??