Highgate Choral Society: Berlioz Te Deum

Over 300 vocalists and the New London Orchestra perform Berlioz’s monumental song of praise, conducted by Ronald Corp OBE.

The Highgate Choral Society is joined by the London Chorus and the New London Children’s Choir in a performance to celebrate Corp’s 70th birthday.

Tenor Nicky Spence, hailed by the Daily Telegraph as ‘a voice of real distinction’, is the soloist.

Berlioz saw his massive Te Deum performed only once in his lifetime, to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. On that occasion it featured 900 singers, including a choir of 600 orphan children.

The concert’s opener, Jubilant Song, is a paean of praise to music.

Jack Liebeck’s ‘virtually flawless’ playing (Gramophone) conveys the charismatic melodies of Dvorák’s Violin Concerto.

The syncopated finale gestures towards the composer’s popular, folk-inflected Slavonic Dances.