Saint-saëns

Symphony No. 2 in A minor; Symphony in F (Urbs Roma); Danse macabre Utah Symphony/thierry Fischer Hyperion CDA 68212 72:42 mins Everyone knows, and most people feel fairly warmly towards, Saintsaëns’s Third Symphony, with its thrilling organ entries and its general sense of grand 19th-century French imperial architecture. What had never struck me until now is that there must be a couple of other symphonies, presumably earlier, for there to be a Third. It turns out that there are several recordings of Symphonies 1 and 2, though not nearly as many as of the Third.

The Utah Symphony, a neglected but admirable orchestra, which recorded the first complete cycle of Mahler symphonies, has Thierry Fischer as its resident conductor, and they would seem to be fully up to the unusual demands of these early works – unusual in that the playing has to be remarkably persuasive to make one feel that it’s worth listening to the end.

Though it must have been exciting to be active at the same time as Berlioz, Brahms, Liszt, Wagner, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and so forth, and to know them all, it must also have been burdensome for a lesser talent, and Saint-saëns hardly exerted himself in these first two symphonies, except to show that he had full technical competence. The music flows by, mainly at a rapid pace, though there is a portentous adagio in Symphony No. 2, and leaves no impression whatever.

The Danse macabre is a fun piece, and raises the spirits briefly between the two long works. Michael Tanner PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★