There is no shortage of these Saint-Saëns works in the catalogue. Last year alone ZZT released all the music for cello and orchestra in its excellent three-CD set by soloists of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel embracing also the works for violin and orchestra (4/14), followed shortly afterwards by Natalie Clein in the two cello concertos, the Allegro appassionato, ‘Le cygne’ and (with violinist Antje Weithaas) La muse et le poète (Hyperion, A/14).

Johannes Moser, in these recordings made in Stuttgart in 2007, adds the F major Romance, Op 36, and the D minor Suite, Op 16, but omits La muse et le poète. Nevertheless, poetry is one of the prime qualities of his playing. Allied to the scintillating bravura that he brings to the outer movements of the First Concerto, injecting them as he does so with thrilling impetus, there is a lyrical beauty and suppleness to the slow movement that is voiced through a mellowness of tone and a natural poise in the shaping of lines. The less frequently heard Second Concerto and the D minor Suite are, as Moser says, ‘unencumbered by the weight of tradition’, allowing him to ‘act more naturally, without prejudice’. Even the First Concerto sounds utterly fresh in his hands but the strong case he makes for the Second Concerto and the Suite, in harness with astute orchestral playing, lends them – in common with the Romance, Allegro appassionato and ‘The Swan’ – an especially stimulating presence and a beguiling fusion of finesse and animation.