Fischer leads a superb, thoroughly enjoyable reading of Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony…And although the three tableaux drawn from incidental music to Eugène Brieux’s play La foi are a roughly sewn stylistic hotchpotch full of dull as well as striking passages, Fischer seems to believe in every note.

The main point of interest here is the thirty-minute suite of incidental music which Saint-Saëns composed for Eugène Brieux’s ‘mighty homily’ (as American writer William Dean Howells somewhat wearily described it) La Foi in 1908. Chock-full of memorable melodies and evocative orchestration, it shares much of the musical language of the ‘Egyptian’ concerto of twelve years earlier, and switches from Elgarian grandiosity to silver-screen opulenc in the blink of an eye.

The Utah Symphony is a superb orchestra, and the warm resonant acoustics of the venue are perfect for this music.