This is very good value, with consistently fine playing and recording (a digital remastering of LPs), though the Third Concerto has had to be split between discs. Certainly one may feel that such an exposure of Saint-Saens reveals his limitations, for though the music is always attractive, melodic ideas are for the most part not strikingly memorable. But even so, the listener's interest is maintained in these pianistically idiomatic concertos, and much in them is imaginative. One such passage is the curiosly Bachian opening, featuring double-basses and piano, of the Andante sostenuto in the First Concerto, while a delightfully Arab flavour in No. 5 (especially the big central movement) conveys something of Egypt, where it was written. Though Roge's tone is a trace heavy in forte, this issue can be confidently recommended for all save resolutely austere tastes. The box wrongly credits the LSO with participation: it is the LPO that plays in the Third Concerto.'