Te Deum (Berlioz)

Like the earlier and more famous Grande Messe des Morts, it is one of the works referred to by Berlioz in his Memoirs as "the enormous compositions which some critics have called architectural or monumental music."

It lasts approximately fifty minutes and derives its text from the traditional Latin Te Deum, although Berlioz changed the word order for dramatic purposes.

Berlioz himself placed the finale, "Judex crederis esse venturus" above anything else he had written in the same style, and it would be difficult to disagree with his judgment unless the second movement, "Tibi omnes," should be thought even finer, on account of the marvellous boldness and harmony of its design.

[1]Anton Bruckner, who wrote his own Te Deum in the early 1880s, criticised Berlioz's setting for being too secular,[5] while Camille Saint-Saëns argued that it was well-suited for performance in church.

[7][8] The recordings conducted by Eliahu Inbal and John Nelson include the two sections usually omitted: the Prelude and the Marche pour la présentation aux drapeaux'