Camille Saint-Saëns, Fanny Clamagirand, Vanya Cohen, Naxos

For many, many years now I have been an admirer and supporter of the Naxos recording company. Not for Naxos the fashion of the moment; no releases of music by black women composers of indeterminate sex. Naxos plods on with first-rate artists (who are not necessarily big names), recording music that ought to be recorded and made available. Its booklets are factual and eschew glamorous photos of glamorous artists. Brand managers may sniff, but Naxos has been around for decades where almost all its competitors have fallen by the wayside.

The latest Naxos release to cross my CD player is of the music for violin and piano of Camille Saint-Saëns whose long life (1835-1921) meant he composed reams and reams of tuneful music. The is Volume 3 of the Saint-Saëns works, recorded by Fanny Clamagirand and Vanya Cohen. The duo is hardly a household name but both artists are mightily impressive in this music that is arrangements for violin and piano -- almost all the arrangements by Saint-Saëns himself, except for one by Georges Bizet and the other by Eugène Ysaÿe. There is music to move the soul; there is music to move the spirits. And there is music simply to be listened to and enjoyed. I listened to the nine works on this CD and enjoyed them all, as I did the playing of Fanny Clamagirand and Vanya Cohen and the recording and balancing skills of Naxos. Thank goodness there is some quality left in this wicked world. Given my advancing years and my kilos of CDs on my shelves, I now buy few new CDs, but I always have room for CDs such as this.