Anna Malikova - Saint-Saens Piano Concertos (2010) [SACD]

Following the worldwide success of the five piano concertos by Camille Saint-Saëns in two separate volumes, audite now presents the complete piano concertos as a new edition on double SACD. Outside of France, Camille Saint-Saëns is still considered a composer of charming salon pieces and pompous orchestral works such as the "Organ Symphony". The work of the French universal musician and multifaceted cosmopolitan reveals many other fascinating aspects. From grand opera to film music to "zoological fantasy" (as he subtitled his Carnival of Animals), he has taken a close look at every genre. From his preoccupation with tradition, Saint-Saëns gained a "classical" style of the 19th century, which nevertheless never lost sight of romantic poetry and modernity. Saint-Saëns regarded his five major piano concertos in particular as a field of experimentation. "The solo part of a concerto must be conceived and treated as a dramatic figure," said the composer, who also enjoyed success as a pianist. And already with his first concerto, the 22-year-old heated up the emotions, which did not calm down until the premiere of the fifth concerto in 1896. Saint-Saëns turned the classical sequence of movements upside down, fantasized in long solo passages à la Bach or quoted melodies from North Africa, the preferred holiday destination of his last decades (he died in Algiers in 1921). The SACD recording of the complete piano concertos, which were written over four decades, thus offers a portrait of a composer whose exuberant and technical mastery is to be rediscovered. The Russian pianist Anna Malikova is a prizewinner at international competitions - her breakthrough came when she won first prize at the ARD Competition in Munich in 1993. Since then, she has made guest appearances as soloist and orchestra soloist all over the world. The WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, conducted by Thomas Sanderling, succeeds in providing sensitive yet independent accompaniment to the soloist