Camille Saint-Saëns lived two decades too long for his own good. His vocal resistance to modernism during those violent years of aesthetic revolution coloured his reputation for the rest of the century as a reactionary relic. Had he died circa 1904 he might have been hailed as France’s greatest composer. As a child prodigy his precocious talent was carefully nurtured, as he matured he embraced the progressive ideas of his time and was admired by Liszt and Berlioz.

Of his five piano concertos only the Second got a foothold in the repertoire but was often sneered at – Stojowski’s “Bach to Offenbach” quip is funny but glib. The other concertos are still a rarity in...