Charpentier: Te Deum; Grand Office Des Morts.

Charpentier: Te Deum; Grand Office Des Morts. William Christie, Les Arts Florissants. Virgin Classics 7243 5 45733 2.

If the Te Deum's opening "Marche de timbales" doesn't make your demonstration-disc list, you probably don't have a system good enough to appreciate it. If that sounds like a typically snobby audiophile statement, so be it. I'm neither a snob nor an audiophile; I just loved those drums! Incidentally, do people still show off their sound systems the way they used to? Or is everything now involved with home theaters and DTS 5.1 this and Dolby Digital 7.1 that, with an 800-foot television screen between the front speakers?

Anyway, Charpentier's elegant music could not find better exponents than William Christie and his Les Arts Florissants ensemble, as refined and elegant a group of performers as exist anywhere in the musical world. The choral singing is flawless; the instrumental playing is impeccable; and Virgin's engineers capture the results in the smoothest sound you can imagine.

OK, granted not everyone appreciates a good mass, especially a good funeral mass, and that's what this music is all about. But since most of us can't understand Latin, anyhow, it probably doesn't matter what they're singing. Just enjoy the voices and the instruments, which blend together almost preternaturally. And what a lovely ambient glow there is in the hall, without a trace of ringing or dulling. Good, concise booklet notes are included, too, with song texts in Latin, French, English, and German.