Neeme Järvi always has had a habit of adopting swift tempos, but lately he seems to be taking this to the point of mania: witness his insane recent Bruckner Fifth. He has become the Albert Coates of the 21st century. Now let’s face it, Saint-Saëns isn’t Bruckner. He generally benefits from quick, enlivening speeds, especially in such places as the frenetic Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila, where the virtuoso timpanist urges his colleagues on to a smoking finish (sound sample attached). Phaëton also is very exciting, with Zeus’ thunderbolt captured to visceral effect by the Chandos engineers. In short, wherever the music calls for excitement or volume, as in the two marches, you can count on Järvi to deliver the goods.
However, there is more to this music than just crashing and bashing, and here Järvi comes up short. In Le Rouet d’Omphale and the Danse macabre, Saint-Saëns demands subtlety, elegance, and richness of timbre, and those qualities are in short supply. Delicate details of orchestration, such as soft suspended cymbals or luscious filigree from the harp, tend to get overlooked. And while it’s nice to have the rare Spartacus overture in what easily is its best performance on disc thus far, it would have been better if Järvi had offered the complete Suite algérienne rather than only its concluding march. Still, with 77 minutes of music including several rare items (the Coronation March, the berceuse Une nuit à Lisbonne, the overture to La Princesse jaune), this is a very generous collection that earns a solid, if not quite ecstatic, recommendation. As Gilbert and Sullivan would say, “Modified rapture!”
