‘I produce music as an apple tree produces apples.’ What a fertile musical imagination Camille Saint-Saëns possessed. It’s easy to forget that his life spanned nearly nine decades and that the crusty conservative of his dotage was once a child prodigy whose early works were acclaimed by the likes of Rossini. Even in old age, Saint-Saëns embraced new technologies, being one of the first composers to record on piano rolls and the creator of what is often cited as the first original score for a silent film, L’assassinat du duc de Guise.

François-Xavier Roth and Les Sìecles have done Saint-Saëns fine service over the years: there was a 2010 recording of the Organ Symphony (with Roth’s dad, Daniel, at the console of the Cavaillé-Coll in Saint-Sulpice, Paris); and, for Palazzetto Bru Zane, a complete recording of the ‘opéra fantastique’ Le timbre d’argent. Now comes a splendid two-disc set where lollipops such as the Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila and The Carnival of the Animals rub shoulders with symphonic poems and that 1908 silent film score.

As anticipated, Roth and Les Siècles bring sparkle and panache to these colourful scores. The four tone poems are packed with drama. Le rouet d’Omphale thrums along busily and La jeunesse d’Hercule contains playing of tremendous delicacy, sighing strings resisting the woodwind temptations of the nymphs and the bacchantes. Phaéton’s ride in the sun chariot is thrilling and full of incident (probably the Saint-Saëns work that is most inspired by Liszt’s symphonic poems, specifically Mazeppa). Liszt’s presence is also felt in the best known of the symphonic poems, the Danse macabre, François-Marie Drieux dapper as the devilish fiddler.

The composer’s ear for the exotic (Saint-Saëns was a frequent traveller across North Africa) is evident in the Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila. It’s always been a favourite and Les Siècles play it with heady abandon from the sinuous main melody to the orgiastic percussion at the close. Charles Dutoit has long been my go-to conductor for these vivid works but Roth and Les Siècles make a great case for them. Quite why these scores have become so neglected in the concert hall is a mystery when they are such obvious crowd-pleasers.

The Carnival of the Animals continues to be, along with the Organ Symphony, Saint-Saëns’s most popular work. The composer himself predicted this and prohibited it being published during his lifetime (except for ‘The Swan’) for fear that it would overshadow his more serious works. It’s given a winning performance here, animated and graceful by turns. Among the menagerie, the ‘Pianistes’ Jean Sugitani and Michael Ertzcheid play at a 1928 Pleyel vis-à-vis, a double piano – illustrated in the booklet – with facing keyboards. Among the delights, Robin Michael is the eloquent cellist in ‘The Swan’, double-bassist Antoine Sobczak an unusually nimble-footed ‘Elephant’.

L’assassinat du duc de Guise is in five short tableaux, only 20 minutes of music in total but worth hearing for its rarity value. Like Carnival, it is scored for chamber forces and Roth draws out the atmosphere and detail in its pithy scenes with precision. It’s not particularly memorable music but its inclusion here adds novelty to a most rewarding release.