The Compact Collection

Among the many current victims of musical fashion are those once-popular mini-showpieces – some purely orchestral, others featuring solo instruments – that, in terms of genre, straddle the symphony, the concerto or the tone poem. They're usually pithy and tuneful, and no one made a better job of composing them than Camille Saint-Saëns.

Four turn up as fill-ups on a superlative new set of Saint-Saëns's piano concertos featuring Stephen Hough.

Africa is probably the most attractive, a must-have for lovers of Litolff's once-popular Scherzo and a feast of catchy syncopations. Saint-Saëns composed it in Cairo in 1891, five years before his so-called Egyptian (or Fifth) Piano Concerto with which it shares a number of features, not least dramatic declamation.

The other shorties – Wedding Cake, Rapsodie d'Auvergne and Allegro appassionato – are as many colourful challenges for Hough's fluent technique. They could almost have been written for him but the greater part of his achievement lies in the concertos, which haven't been as well played in years.

The 1858 First Concerto is the little-known peach, cool as crystal at its centre (a ravishing Andante sostenuto) and cheerfully extrovert in its outer movements. Annotator Philip Borg-Wheeler reminds us that it was the very first piano concerto by a major French composer, though its musical appeal upstages its historical significance. Concertos Two and Four are better known, the Second anticipating Poulenc in its alternation of Bachian severity and skittish good humour, the Fourth dominated by a festive set of variations that runs parallel with the finale of Saint-Saëns's Third Symphony. Fiendish pianistic difficulties are surmounted without either strain or fuss,(at least, that's how it appears) and Sakari Oramo's CBSO accompaniments are beautifully judged.

Oramo's fastidious judgement also informs his latest Sibelius CD, where a keen sense of pulse helps clarify the Fifth Symphony's often perplexing structure. The popular Karelia Suite is even finer, particularly the central Menuetto, where the mobile accompanying cello line is kept clearly in the picture. The tone poem, Pohjola's Daughter is swifter than some rival versions, more urgent at its climax and The Bard is both transparent and mysterious.

The only mystery surrounding Giuliano Carmignola's new Vivaldi CD for Sony is the exact provenance of its musical contents. There are six concertos programmed, all of them "late Vivaldi" and all beautifully played, but as none have previously been recorded it would have been useful if the booklet note had quoted us some sources. Am I perhaps being paranoid, recalling that pre-war critics were caught out when the violinist-composer Fritz Kreisler paraded his own pastiches as rediscovered antiques? Stranger hoaxes have happened since. Still, I suppose I can take heart from the annotated fact that Vivaldi stopped selling scores for mass distribution, and preferred instead to charge high prices for individual manuscripts. Hence the problems in tracking them down. The music is full of unexpected twists and turns, the idiom stylistically unmistakable and the playing of the Venice Baroque Orchestra, under Andrea Marcon, impeccable.

Saint-Saëns Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5, etc. Stephen Hough, CBSO/Sakari Oramo Hyperion CDA67331/2 (two discs)

Sibelius Symphony No 5, etc CBSO/Sakari Oramo Erato 8573-858222-2

Vivaldi Violin Concertos RV177, 222, 273, 295, 375 & 191 Giuliano Carmignola, Venice Baroque Orchestra/Andrea Marcon Sony SK 89362