Two Te Deums go head to head! The famous one by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and a completely new one by Henry Desmarets. Charpentier and Desmarets, remarkable composers of both sacred music and opera, shared a taste for Italian music and travel, but they also shared the disadvantage of having spent some time in Jean-Baptiste Lully's 'shadow'! Desmarets' life was somewhat tormented, between disgrace and exile; it was while he was superintendent of music at the Court of Lorraine that he composed two Te Deums , including the Te Deum "de Lyon". Written for the same ensemble as Charpentier's famous Te Deum , it uses trumpets and timpani for the grandiloquent sections. It is a true work of craftsmanship, notably in the variety of instrumentation, but also in its alternation of different vocal forces.