[ Naxos / CD ]
Release Date: Saturday 1 July 2017
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The sheer attractiveness of Saint-Saëns's music has ensured its immortality in the canon of French romantic composers. Spanning almost four decades, his five piano concertos vary widely in character but offer some of his most exciting if unorthodox creations, and represent an important evolutionary phase in the French piano concerto. The Piano Concerto No. 1 in D major, widely considered the first by a major French composer, is a youthful and exuberant piece, and the virtuosic Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor is one of Saint-Saëns's most popular and frequently performed works in any genre.
"Money well spent: a young(ish) French pianist (b1980) with a polished technique and an innate affinity with his countryman's idiom, well recorded, with first-class accompaniment from the genial Marc Soustrot" Gramophone
"Descharmes has a special way with this music that's really quite liberating" MusicWeb
"Some of the sonorities are startling, and Soustrot, alive to such shifts, makes the most of them. Descharmes is equally receptive, those unsettling chords and dark harmonies exploited to the full. Indeed, it's not difficult to hear why this concerto is less popular than the others, but this committed, strongly characterised performance should win it a raft of new friends." Musicweb Recording of the Month June 2017
Piano Concerto No. 1 in D major Op. 17
Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22
Allegro appassionato for piano & orchestra Op. 70