Once, if briefly, known as the French Mozart, Saint-Saëns possessed a legendary facility, claiming he composed music ‘as an apple tree produces apples’. But remarkable gifts often have their downside and it is surely such inborn skill that was his undoing. Despite decorative and accessible charm, Saint-Saëns was no Mozart. However, Geoffrey Burleson takes another view and in both his playing and his accompanying essay he makes a special plea for a composer he clearly feels remains misrepresented.

Certainly there is much of interest in Vol 3 of his cycle. In the second Bagatelle you hear the influence of Schumann’s Florestan (his man of action) in writing as colourful as it is pianistically adroit. The Op 72 Album offers music of a fuller, more advanced idiom, with the shadow of Liszt in his later dark-hued manner hanging over ‘Carillon’ and with an elegant ‘Valse’ to follow (though Fauré far excelled him in the aerial fantasy of his Four Valses-caprices).

The Rhapsodie d’Auvergne (originally for piano and orchestra) fizzes with energy after its folksong start and the ambitious 1867 Caprice has a notably witty finale. Yet arguably the most personal voice is found in Les cloches du soir and in the concluding Feuillet d’album (something to try out as an encore on an unsuspecting audience). But all this music is played with verve and commitment by Burleson, even if I imagine he would really like to give his all to the piano concertos, where Saint-Saëns’s star shines most brightly.