The renoir image on the cover of the new Florestan Trio CD could not have been better chosen - all dappled light and elegance, reflecting the music of Saint-Saens' two piano trios, so deftly delivered by the three English musicians.
Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) has suffered from more than his fairshare of bad press. He is best known for the throwaway zoological fancies of his Carnival of the Animals and yet those who chortle at the more robust moments of the Organ Symphony are often unaware of the civilised charm of his songs and chamber music.
The first of his two piano trios is the result of a holiday in the Pyrenees, and the work of a young man in his late 20s.
The first movement is a compulsive dance. With a few harmonic twists, it could be a Milhaud rumba, although Saint-Saens' rippling scales never stray over the borders of tonality. And few pianists can render them with such a pearly gleam as Susan Tomes. Violinist Anthony Marwood and cellist Richard Lester give the second movement its character, attacking the composer's hurdy-gurdy sounds with a real earthiness.
The following Scherzo finds the group on the hip side, flicking out offbeat syncopations against Lester's walking pizzicato bass line.
The second, E minor, Trio was written in 1892 on one of Saint-Saens' many holidays enjoying the sunnier clime and more relaxed moral climate of North Africa. There is stylish melancholy here, a plea, perhaps, from a composer trying to assert French elegance and style in the face of the Wagnerian bloat that was sweeping his nation. A Tchaikovskian elegiac touch reminds us that the two composers had once danced a pas de deux - and certainly the scrumptious waltz of its fourth movement would be ample excuse for donning tights and tutu.
The Finale, as with the last movement of the first trio, is a piece of more gravitas, and the Florestans treat it as such. Its subtle textures are followed through and brought to glittering life, perfectly set in another exemplary Hyperion recording.
* Saint-Saens, Piano Trios (Hyperion CDA 67538, through Ode Records)
