This scintillating disc finds Jean-Yves Thibaudet in notably effervescent form, revelling in Saint-Saëns’s pianistic brio and intricacy. He makes a special case for the enchanting but still neglected Egyptian Concerto, commenced in Luxor, completed in Cairo and, according to the composer, reflecting “the joy of a sea voyage”. He brings a recognisably French clarity and verve to the music’s foaming figuration and captures all of its audacity (an imitation of croaking Nile frogs in the central Andante and pumping boat engines in the riotous finale). Hear his pin-point brilliance at 7'38" in the opening Allegro animato where the pianist weaves a sparkling thread round the orchestral outline, his fast-paced avoidance of sententiousness in the long-winded Andante and his rush of adrenalin in the split octave upsurge at the end of the concluding Molto allegro, and you are made conscious of a pianist whose virtuosity takes wing in exactly the way prescribed by the composer. Much the same could be said of Thibaudet’s performance of the Second Concerto, music which as one writer put it journeys from Bach to Offenbach. His ad libitum opening cadenza is complemented by flashing fingers elsewhere (never more so than in Saint-Saëns’s impish memory of Chopin’s Fourth Scherzo in the Allegro scherzando), and since there is inwardness as well as an irresistible élan and impetus in the Franck Variations, you could say that Thibaudet and France (or in Franck’s case, Belgium) go together like a horse and carriage. Dutoit and the Suisse Romande are all of a piece with their high-flying soloist and Decca’s balance and sound are exemplary.