French Piano From Different Generations

French piano music on a budget cd from Saint-Saens ( Piano Concerto No 2 and Piano Concerto No 4 ) and Poulenc ( Trois Mouvements Perpetuels, Suite Napoli and Suite Pour Piano ), Pascal Roge is the soloist in the concertos with the backing of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on No 2 and the Philharmonia Orchestra on No 4 conducted by Charles Dutoit on both occasions. The Poulenc works are solo piano pieces played by Roge. I can imagine that the Saint-Saens concertos are great fun to play if you have the technical facility to do so. No great emotional depth to find but lots of flowing exciting note spinning and joie de vivre. Concerto No 2 is the most widely performed of his cycle and the presto is particularly memorable and show stopping. The Poulenc pieces inhabit a different world, some jazz inflience, something of Satie in there too maybe. Cool and languid in the main with an understated sophistication. Roge gives fine accounts of all the works here and as a cheap reissue it's a good sampler.