I think that Saint-Saëns is a very great composer and one of the great ones! Hugely underrated for too much time...Schönberg once wrote an essay, "Brahms the progressive". No gentlemen, he made a mistake. He meant: "SAINT-SAËNS THE PROGRESSIVE!" :) :) Thank you for your video and for your channel!

I'll buy it..but without forgetting the Ciccolini's account of them

These recordings are very good. Saint-Saëns PC #3 movement #3 is amazing!

I purchased these recordings and I am grateful for your review because you're right! Louis Lortie's recordings of CSS's p.concertos are very good. These recordings are superior to the versions I own. Thanks. And an additional thanks for reviewing Saint-Saens' 3rd symphony and your recommendation of the Boston Symphony conducted by Charles Munch, it is the gold-standard recording.

I’ll definitely check out this recommendation. I’ve long enjoyed these concertos, especially “the Egyptian”.

These are indeed wonderful performances. I hope they go a long way to getting these works programmed more in the concert hall (if we ever have live music again). I think what makes the Lortie discs special is the give and take between Lortie and Gardner. However, I can't make my mind up whether I like them better than Stephen Hough's amazing set with Sakari Oramo. Hough seems to have more of the Lisztian fire for me. But we're splitting hairs. I think the main thing is that you're entirely right, David, that these works need to be played with that kind of peddle-to-the-metal virtuosity. Saint Saens, himself, recorded a heavily cut bit of the second concerto in 1904 (impossible to enjoy for everyday listening because of the sound) but the performance seems to prove this was his way of playing the music as well. Subsequent performers from Jeanne-Marie Darré to Victor Schiøler - as great as they were - almost seem to treat them like brittle antiques and I think that kind of interpretation had been the norm for too long. I much prefer Hough and Lortie (and for that matter Arthur Rubinstein who played for the composer and retained that vital virtuosity).

Louis Lortie is one of the greatest pianists before the public today. Have you heard his Ravel? WOW!

I love (and. happily, after quite a search) now own the Anna Malikova set; but I'll have to give these a try.

I love No. 4 more than the rest.

Don Vroon of the American Record Guide does not like these performances. Such is the nature of criticism! I have the Malikova on Audite SACD, which I believe you also like. Any comments?

Christophe Huss agrees.....