Utah Symphony starts its Saint-Saëns symphonic cycle

The Utah Symphony and music director Thierry Fischer are launching a new recording project this weekend: the complete symphonies of French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, plus a handful of his other hits such as “The Carnival of the Animals,” to be released on the Hyperion label. Like other recent Utah Symphony releases, these will be recorded live in Abravanel Hall. Friday brought the first installment, the composer’s Symphony No. 2.

Saint-Saëns may lack the gravitas, and certainly the name recognition, of composers such as Beethoven and Mahler, but his music does have a sunny charm, and Fischer and his orchestra channeled it Friday night in a polished, incisive performance. Their deft delivery of the witty scherzo movement even earned appreciative chuckles from the crowd.

A similar refinement marked the orchestra’s performance of the opening work, Hector Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival Overture,” which ended in a fitting blaze of brilliance. Lissa Stolz’s solo on the English horn was especially beguiling.

The evening closed with Antonín Dvorák’s beloved Cello Concerto, with 26-year-old Dutch cellist Harriet Krijgh as soloist. Krijgh’s sound was not particularly commanding in the soaring orchestral tutti passages, but she played with pleasing lyricism and a smooth, sweet tone. The soloist’s interplay with woodwind principals Mercedes Smith (flute), James Hall (oboe), Tad Calcara (clarinet) and Lori Wike (bassoon) had the friendly quality of chamber music.