The two string quartets of Camille Saint-Saëns are not among the deathless masterpieces in the genre, but they offer enough entertaining and agreeable music to be regarded as minor classics of chamber music. The String Quartet in E minor, Op. 112, and the String Quartet No. 2 in G major, Op. 153, share the craftsmanship, intellectual rigor, and tastefulness that are characteristic of Saint-Saëns' conservative style.

In a world full of couplings of Schumann and Grieg's Piano Concertos in A minor, this disc offers three distinct advantages. First and most obviously, it offers an additional work, Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto in G minor, which brings the disc's total playing time up 78 minutes. Second, it offers up a soloist who's also the conductor, the multitalented Howard Shelley who directs England's Orchestra of Opera North from the keyboard.

Steven Isserlis is a splendid cellist with a consummate technique and a focused, intense tone capable of infinite variety. He's an enterprising, imaginative musician with a penchant for centering programs on a single composer or national idiom. He has recorded French sonatas for Virgin Classics, and for RCA, the works of Mendelssohn, John Taverner, Haydn, and Czech and Russian composers. On his latest CD, Isserlis performs four relatively unfamiliar compositions of Saint-Saëns. Unfortunately, obscure works by a good composer are usually neglected for a reason.

Saint-Saëns's lovely First Cello Concerto is probably the only work on this disc most listeners are familiar with. The second, written after the turn of the century (1902), is somewhat more severe but also rewarding. The composer's famous Third Symphony is actually his fifth; this recording contains the first, a skillful if slight piece by a very gifted 20-year-old. The short Romance provides a charming interlude. Thedéen is an excellent cellist, and all the music is intimate enough in scale that Kantarow and his fine chamber orchestra can handle it with complete aplomb. Fine recorded sound.

'Concerto!' was a Channel Four TV series that showed participating soloists in rehearsal, in conversation with Dudley Moore and Michael Tilson Thomas and, ultimately, in performance, which resulted in several recordings, of which this is one. This disc is recommendable not so much for Steven Isserlis's Cello Concerto – smooth and intelligent as that is – as for the fillups. The swan has Moore and Tilson Thomas as joint accompanists, elegantly executed, but the items with Pascal Devoyon are especially valuable, the First Cello Sonata full of elegantly tailored drama, the two Romances, Chant saphique and Gavotte palpable charmers, tastefully played; and the headstrong, thematically memorable Allegro appassionato, one of the finest shorter pieces in the cellist's repertory. .

The third volume in Marc Soustrot's series on Naxos of the five symphonies of Camille Saint-Saëns presents one of his least familiar works, the Symphony in F major, "Urbs Roma," an early effort from 1856, written when the composer was 21 years old. The symphony won a prize at a competition held by the Bordeaux Société Ste Cécile, no doubt in recognition of Saint-Saëns' skillful orchestration and many striking passages that, by turns, evoke Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. However, Saint-Saëns thought so little of the piece that he didn't publish it, and it subsequently suffered from decades of neglect.

This CD gives you a little slice of the restoration and development of quintessential French chamber music that gained momentum in the late 19th century and peaked around 1900 - the Golden Era of French art, music and culture. In opposition to the latest fads from Germany (Wagner's giantatism) and overzelous Parisian operas, the luminous pioneers of this vital movement in Paris were Frank, Faure, Saint Saens, Ravel, Massenet, Chausson and later the more modern "impressionist", Claude Debussy.

For the first time, this collection brings together the complete woodwind chamber music of France's leading composers in the medium: Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Ravel and Poulenc. In a set which evinces the now familiar Cala hallmark of creatively combining established treasures with enticing discoveries, including here four world première recordings. Volume One presents the works of Debussy and Saint-Saëns and Volume Two those of Ravel and Poulenc. Each volume contains two full-length CDs (well over two hours of music) for the price of one.

The Glière is the most ambitious work here, running for nearly 23 minutes, almost a record length for a horn concerto. It is very florid and romantic—its unlikely model is Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, to which it comes nearest in the finale which is a lively Russian dance. Although some of the material is ingenuous, notably the march rhythm of the first movement, it is quite a jolly piece and has much in common with the Richard Strauss concertos. Otherwise the best known work is the Dukas Villanelle which Dennis Brain liked to play, and which is attractively diverse in mood and style, although essentially a miniature.

The neglect of the vast majority of Saint-Saëns' chamber and orchestral output is a loss to music lovers everywhere. Even worse is the condescending attitude of musical academia toward a composer who not only was fantastically gifted in his own right, but a true scholar and student of the classics. And if his own works sometimes reflect the result of this knowledge, then what's the harm? The composer himself once said something along these lines: "He who does not get absolute pleasure from a series of well-constructed chords, beautiful only in their arrangement, is not really fond of music."

Saint-Saëns's reputation rests on a few popular works–Danse Macabre, Symphony No. 3, The Carnival of the Animals–but his output was far more vast and varied than most people realize. The Third Violin Concerto is one of the great Romantic masterpieces for the instrument, yet it's much less popular than it once was. Whatever the reasons, they certainly aren't Itzhak Perlman's fault, for he simply plays the daylights out of both this piece and Lalo's ever popular Symphonie espagnole. I'm always amazed, when listening to the Saint-Saëns composition, just how well-written it is, and how good it always sounds. Perhaps his level of sheer craftsmanship was so high that people lose sight of the music's genuine inspiration.

Une série d'oeuvres charmantes, il serait dommage de passer à côté de ce duo de pianistes brillants. Certains passages exigent une virtuosité certaine mais Ivaldi et Lee sont à l'aise dans cet exercice et ils se connaissaient si bien. A consommer sans modération !

Which once-famous cellist toured with his own version of Jimi Hendrix's notorious "Star-Spangled Banner" and booked to play the Bach Cello Suites in nightclubs? Matt Haimovitz, herd here when he was not yet twenty, was heading off to Harvard (in the footsteps of Yo-Yo- Ma), and boasted a contract with DG. Despite brilliant reviews, the contract was canceled, and a disenchanted Haimovitz went his own way, achieving an offbeat career. He now teaches at Mcgill Univ. in canada, having spent a long time in Boston and Amherst. No doubt he's satisfied, yet one can't help but remember F. Scott Fitzgerald's remark about no second acts in American literature. Now it's also music.