Thierry Fischer's ongoing Utah Symphony Saint-Saëns series continues to delight, celebrating a composer who really deserves to be treated with greater respect. Enrolling at the Paris Conservatoire at a time when hotheaded romanticism was in full flight, Saint-Saëns chose as his mentor the composer Henri Reber. In his words, someone who ‘belonged to that rare body of men who speak in low tones, avoid long harangues and write nothing that is without purpose.’ Hailing Saint-Saëns’ own music for displaying the very same virtues might sound like damning with faint praise. It isn't: the craft, control and formal perfection of the two early symphonies on this disc is exhilarating, not stultifying. The Symphony in A major was written in 1850, when the composer was just 15. Mozart quotation aside, it shows Saint-Saëns’ debt to Mendelssohn, especially in a featherlight finale. The ‘official’ Symphony No 1 followed three years later, more elaborately scored and just as precociously confident. Gounod and Berlioz were impressed. There's a magical passage at the start of the first movement’s fast section, the pace dropping and a lonely horn calling out. Wonderful. There's a similar moment at the start of the Adagio, a melting solo clarinet line singing out over harp and shimmering strings. Joyous stuff—as first symphonies go, it's superb. Elegant, unforced playing from the Utah Symphony, clearly enjoying themselves.
The coupling is Le carnaval des animaux, Fischer's stripped down forces accentuating the score’s boldness and modernity. There really is ‘nothing without purpose’ here, elephants, kangaroos and the rest making themselves known in music of striking quirkiness. Try the cuckoo movement, the pianists desperately trying to explore new harmonic vista against the cuckoo’s stubborn refusal to change key. Saint-Saëns’ little finale rattles along at a lick, pianists Jason Hardink and Kimi Kawashima dazzling. There must be more Saint-Saëns orchestral music to explore; hopefully this won't be the final volume?