Saint-Saëns: Songs

This issue in our French Song Edition is a single disc devoted to the songs of Camille Saint-Saëns, the composer of Carnival of the Animals, Danse Macabre and Samson and Dalila. During his long life (he lived to the age of eighty-six) he wrote a surprisingly large number of songs, few of which are well known. Here are twenty-seven of them. Saint-Saëns drew his texts from a wide variety of sources, old and new, including the greatest French writers of his time – Victor Hugo particularly. But, as Graham Johnson wittily says in his notes to the disc, 'they were all grist to Camille'.

CDA66856  75 minutes 36 seconds
CLASSIC CD RARE REPERTOIRE RECORD OF THE YEAR
‘This is the most resounding blow yet to be struck for the mélodies of Saint-Saëns … Le Roux is one of the most charismatic performers of our time … this is certainly one of the best things ...
‘Musical jewels surface with delightful consistency in this 27-song recital. An absorbing and revelatory disc’ (BBC Music Magazine)
‘There's hardly a dud among these 30-or-so songs on this well filled, perfectly recorded disc, an ideal accompaniment to a hot summer evening’ (The Daily Telegraph)