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Musical Opinion

The notably-gifted Australian-born pianist Antony Gray continues his valuable traversal of the complete solo piano music of Camille Saint-Saëns with this second volume, a double-CD set containing very many works which are all but completely unknown today, yet which – as with almost all of this composer’s music – remain virtually unknown, even to pianists.

His major contributions to the piano, as Divine Art point out, ‘are the equally neglected body of transcriptions (of his own works and those of others) where he was eclipsed by the more outgoing and promotion-minded Liszt.’

However, Saint-Saëns’ music was hardly unknown, even internationally, during his long life, yet it remains true that in the teeming and sadly fast-shrinking world of classical music today, Saint-Saëns’ output is confined to a mere handful of the over 200 works he completed and published.

Saint-Saëns’ long life may have led him to become both a friend of Berlioz and an enemy of Les Six, but his genius (by no means too strong a word) and wholly exceptional gifts certainly deserve being made available today, and the medium of commercial recording is the way to do it.

As with Antony Gray’s first release in this immensely valuable series [reviewed in our last issue],this second set of CDs maintains the high standard of insight, technical command and recording quality – the music is unfailingly interesting and even Saint-Saëns’ twelve (actually 13, the latter number avoided no doubt for superstitious reasons) J S Bach transcriptions are well worth-while. As with volume 1, here are a number of first recordings, making this notable achievement a landmark in solo piano repertoire recording history. A remarkable and valuable achievement, comprehensively recommended. [five stars]