This disc is as beautifully planned as it is played and engineered. The two Saint-Saëns cello concertos are superb pieces–succinct, shapely, melodically memorable, passionate and charming by turns. They don’t get much respect in musical circles, but Truls Mørk plays both of them magnificently. His impeccable intonation, total freedom from unwelcome performance noises, restrained but colorful vibrato, and sweet timbre throughout all registers combine with Järvi’s propulsive accompaniments to produce performances that can only be called “noble.” They do the music proud at every point, especially in the First Concerto’s central Allegretto con moto, which is just delicious.
The program then pivots around a zesty, graphic account of The Carnival of the Animals, with Mørk on hand as The Swan, and Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier capably tossing off the two piano solos. Having thus introduced the keyboards, Lortie wraps up the concert with the “Wedding-cake” Caprice and the Africa fantasy, this latter a spectacular work performed with all of the glitter and gusto that it requires. There are so many splendid short piano-and-orchestra pieces that we only get to hear on recordings, and these are certainly two of them.
As you can plainly see, a great deal of care obviously went into assembling this program, and the result is disc that you can dip into at will, or play straight through as a thoroughly coherent and wonderfully representative concert that reveals Saint-Saëns at his best throughout. A home run in every respect.
