Here is another winning addition to the Saint-Saëns series Marc Soustrot is conducting for Naxos. Anyone who enjoys hearing a good violinist showing off will probably already know the composer’s Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, perhaps also his heat-hazy Havanaise. The five less familiar pieces that join them on this disc also shine, partly because of the stylish pacing and playing of Soustrot and his orchestra, but also thanks to the intelligent and sweet-toned performances of violinist Tianwa Yang. There are plenty of notes in, say, the 1880 Morceau de Concert, but nothing is merely a vehicle for showmanship. Saint-Saëns’s gift for melody that flows irresistibly, if not always memorably, remains to the fore in this and two brief Romances, in the lilting Caprice Andalou and, most intriguingly, in La Muse et le Poète – a late work that’s almost a tone poem, with Yang soaring in duet with cellist Gabriel Schwabe.
