No one could begrudge Camille Saint-Saëns a festival all to himself. He was a gigantic figure in late 19th-century French music and hugely popular in his lifetime in London too. But nowadays his name is kept alive by just a handful of works from his huge output, which consists of almost 170 opus numbers, in every conceivable genre.
The month-long celebration, based in the Wigmore Hall with excursions to the Baribcan and the Royal Academy of Music for some orchestral music and a rare opera, has been planned by cellist Steven Isserlis. He had plenty of solo instrumental and chamber music to choose from, and some of the programmes coming up look intriguing, but the opening concert, with a typically starry Wigmore line-up of players, wasn't ever remotely intriguing or engaging.
Those players were all there to perform in the "grand zoological fantasy" Carnival of the Animals at the end of the concert, though, for all its popularity, that seems an odd choice of work for a series designed to explore some of the lesser known aspects of the composer's art.
The playing was generally as quick-witted and expert as you'd expect from an ensemble including flautist Emily Beynon and percussionist Colin Currie, but the unattributed narration (was it a tweaked version of Ogden Nash's?), was delivered archly by Simon Butteriss, and put the final dampener on what had already turned into an unsatisfying evening.
The pianists, Simon Crawford and Philip Moore, both recruited for the Carnival, had begun the concert with the two-piano Variations in E flat on a theme by Beethoven - a lumpen and melodically drab take on material from the Op 31 no 3 piano sonata. They were followed by Julian Bliss in a distinctly subdued though technically perfect account of the late Clarinet Sonata, before violinist Joshua Bell played the B flat Berceuse with an elegant, veiled tone, spoiling it all immediately afterwards with an excessively mannered account of the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. No revelations there then. The popularity of works such as Samson et Delila and the Organ Symphony are not under threat so far.
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