Few nations venerate cinema like the French. Think of François Truffaut’s admiration of the films of Hitchcock or his love for Singin’ in the Rain, with Kelly chanting ‘Got-ta dance! … Got-ta dance!’

Alexandre Tharaud has always been one for themed recordings, so how apt that he has alighted on cinema, whether it be homegrown or from Hollywood, to host this two-disc selection as pianist in over 50 pieces and with Antonio Pappano and his Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia joining him on the first CD. With the Italian musicians on board, how could he resist Cinema Paradiso? Pianist and conductor bring their own brand of magic to this magical celebration of cinema itself, a reflective and bittersweet composition by Morricone père et fils. A special notice, too, for the sensitive contribution of the anonymous oboe player in Morricone’s La disubbidienza. Italian compositions continue with Tharaud’s down-to-earth performance of Rota’s Otto e mezzo (8), which sits in contrast to the nocturnal world of the eponymous street-walker from Le notti di Cabiria, whose tale was recreated a decade later on Broadway in Sweet Charity.

Legrand and Lai were two composers from French cinema who went on to find fame and fortune in Hollywood but figures of no less a musical sensibility are also represented, such as Philippe Sarde, with his slight but utterly charming Main Theme and Helen’s Song (sung by Camélia Jordana) from Les choses de la vie, and Gabriel Yared, whose L’amant, with a gentle harmonic nod to the Parsifal Prelude, is given an exqusite interpretation. So too is Philippe Rombi’s Joyeux Noël, arranged for solo piano by the composer.

Such are the vagaries surrounding the release of many of these films that titles such as Les palmes de M Schutz – represented by a delicious ‘Mouvement perpétuel’ by the prolific Vladimir Cosma – or the brilliant Final from his L’as des as and the chirpy Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire might never have seen the light of day. Paramount poured big money into the cops-and-robbers thriller Borsalino, a success buoyed up by Claude Bolling’s jolly Main Theme for mechanical piano.

Rest assured Thiraud doesn’t pass on the blockbusters. Dimitri Soudoplatoff, who is responsible for many of the fabulous arrangements herein, has penned a sumptuous treatment of Hamlisch’s The Way We Were where the ebb and flow of the music is caught to perfection by Tharaud and Pappano. They lavish the same care and attention on other Legrand wonders such as Summer of ’42 and ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’ from The Thomas Crown Affair. Tharaud’s subtle interplay of tunes from Yentl and the beautiful ‘His Eyes, Her Eyes’ catch Tharaud’s Steinway in all its glory. ‘Over the Moon’ from ET is here, as well as the pretty Sabrina, a lesser-known John Williams composition. In contrast there’s The Hours – talk about seeing through a glass darkly! More contemporary choices are reflected in La La Land and the Waltz from Amélie, a rare international smash hit for French cinema.

The contrasts throughout deepen the pleasure of listening. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a more fitting end-of-year cause for popping the champagne than with this heady concoction saluting cinema in all its glory. Either in the car or at home, this is the antidote to our troubled but dear world.