Saint-Saens: Organ Symphony; Poulenc: Organ Concerto.

Saint-Saens: Organ Symphony; Poulenc: Organ Concerto. Peter Hurford, organ; Charles Dutoit, Orchestre symphonique de Montreal; * Philharmonia Orchestra. Decca Originals 475 7728.

It seemed to me that Dutoit just recorded this Saint-Saens Third Symphony a few years ago, yet it was done in 1982, a quarter century ago. Amazing. Nevertheless, this 2006 remastering in the Decca "Original" series didn't impress me any more on my recent listening than it did all those many years ago.

Dutoit conducts in an urbane, cultured musical style, with everything neatly and effortlessly in place. He's not one to take many chances, and his manner meshes well with some kinds of music--Ravel, for instance, Debussy, and the French impressionists. In a big, loud, sometimes boisterous piece like the Organ Symphony, however, he seems too confined, too suave, too polished; everything is too well ordered, too perfect, if you will. And the situation is not helped along by a recording that is ultrasmooth as well, with not quite enough deep bass to really pull it all together.

I found the accompanying Poulenc Organ Concerto a tad fresher, recorded a decade later in 1992, and with the Philharmonia Orchestra rather than with Dutoit's usual Montreal group. The performance has a little more life to it, and the recording is a bit closer and more dynamic.

Still, it's the Saint-Saens that most people will probably want, and here one might do better with Louis Fremaux and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra on a mid-priced EMI or Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony on an RCA SACD or an expensive but worthwhile JVC XRCD. Both Fremaux and Munch are more exciting, more electrifying than Dutoit, and even though the quality of their recordings may not be as refined as Decca's, they are better in other ways, like deep bass and transparency.