Camille Saint-Saëns certainly caught the travel bug. The composer was an intrepid tourist and often wintered in warmer climes: Italy, Spain, Egypt and Algeria, visiting the latter 18 times. As well as satisfying his interest in archaeology – there’s a wonderful photo of the composer at Karnak in 1912 – Saint Saëns also immersed himself in local culture, much of which found its way into his music. Think of his use of a Nubian love song, heard while sailing down the Nile, in his Fifth Piano Concerto, or the Tunisian folk tune that appears in the finale of his concertante fantasy Africa.

I guess it’s only a matter of time before Saint-Saëns is called out for ‘cultural appropriation’, but French-Algerian conductor Zahia Ziouani and the ensemble she founded, Divertimento Orchestra, have the perfect riposte. Their debut disc is devoted to Saint-Saëns and his Mediterranean scores, but they juxtapose them with traditional Algerian music, courtesy of Ensemble Amedyez, and the songs of Idir and Francisco Salvador-Daniel. Ziouani calls it an ‘encounter between cultures’. It’s not a new idea – I recall Concerto Köln collaborating with Sarband on an album (‘Dream of the Orient’ – Archiv) exploring the influence of the Ottoman Empire on 18th-century composers such as Mozart and Süssmayr – but it is an intriguing one.

It’s good to hear three numbers from the Suite algérienne (the ‘Marche militaire française’ is absent) interspersed with genuine Algerian examples. These numbers, dotted between the Saint-Saëns, are played with panache, sometimes expanded for full orchestral forces, with Rachid Brahim-Djelloul a persuasive vocalist. Members of Ensemble Amedyez also perform improvisations to preface numbers such as the Jota aragonese – a tune Glinka got to well before Saint-Saëns. Cellist Fettouma Ziouani, the conductor’s sister, plays an improvisation before her own arrangement of the seductive aria ‘Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix’ from Samson et Dalila. The famous Bacchanale from the same opera is something of a calling card for Divertimento and they play it with spirit.

Most of the Saint-Saëns performances are adequate but the Tarantella for flute and clarinet is rather limp, lacking energy. You’ll find more polished readings by starrier orchestras elsewhere – Geoffrey Simon recorded a lot of this music with the LPO (Cala) – but that’s not really the point. It’s the opportunity to explore different musical styles drawing on the same musical locations that fascinates here, and on that score, this is a most worthwhile album.