We last encountered Gautier Capuçon on his album ‘Sensations’ (1/23), striding at low tide towards Mont Saint-Michel with cello in hand. His destination now is Paris, where he offers a musical toast to the city that will soon host the Olympic Games.

Melodies such as Beau soir, Heifetz after Debussy, contrast with upbeat tracks such as Rameau’s Danse des sauvages, given a rumbustious performance, and Jean-Jacques Goldman’s Envole moi, a tune remarkably similar to Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I will survive’. In a similar vein are Waterloo Road, a tune of British origin, lost in translation as Les Champs-Élysées, and the sprightly waltz La foule, a song from Peru written in 1936 by Ángel Cabral but not widely aired until Piaf took it into her repertoire in 1953.

I mention these facts because the album is short on provenance. Little needs to be added to such familiar fare as the Habenera from Bizet’s Carmen, the Barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann or Fauré’s Sicilienne, given a delightful lilt in this performance, but there are a selection of transcriptions of French popular songs that will be less familiar to many, including tunes associated with singers like Aznavour, Dassin and Brassens as well as titles derived from French films, and one from the musical Notre-Dame de Paris, which made it to the West End in 2000. The song ‘Belle’, a doleful composition sung by Quasimodo, is given a moving interpretation by Capuçon, whose artistry elevates a fair number of them for more than their worth.

How much one misses or loses in these transcriptions depends to a degree on familiarity with the original. I found myself filling in the a cappella vocal line to the theme tune from the movie Un homme et une femme. No one, though, will miss the lyric to The Summer Knows (and sheds her clothes), where Legrand’s fine tune is given an expansive workout. I’m grateful to Capuçon and the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris for introducing me to such delightful pieces as La chanson d’Hélène, Les copains d’abord and Delerue’s Thème de Camille. I expressed some reservations about ‘Sensations’ regarding the cello’s suitability for the chosen repertoire but these have dissipated with this new release.

Of particular note among the performers are the children from the Bondy and Paris commune with their crowd-pleasing number Pense à nous, counterpoint from Capuçon, newly written by Jean-Jacques Goldman. The recording venue, the Salle Colonne in Paris, has a fair reverberation and one is aware, en route, of Capuçon’s intakes of breath. With Jerôme Ducros as his indefatigable keyboard player and arranger, ‘Destination Paris’ is an agreeable aperitif of things to come.