Philippe Lefebvre, Orchestre National de France, Seiji Ozawa - Saint-Saëns: Symphonie No. 3, Le Rouet D'Omphale, Phaéton (1987)

Camille Saint Saens emerged as a composer of note at a time when French music was sadly short of musical heroes. The great age of Lully, Couperin and Rameau was over, and the days of Debussy, Ravel, Satie and others was yet to come.
Saint Saens' music had a profound impact on the generation that followed, creating an appetite for French composers in France, and demonstrating that a Frenchman could write substantial orchetral music to stand alongside the great German Romantic composers. Ironically, however, Saint Saens' compositional approach sounds quite German to my ears.
Nevertheless, the Organ Symphony is a French idiom -- the other great composer of the form was Charles-Marie Widor -- and the combination of German-style orchestration in a fundamentally French context results in some great music. Moreover, this music is considerably more tuneful [though not necessarilly BETTER] than what most of Saint Saens' German counterparts were doing at the time.
The sound quality of this disc is first-rate and the performance is suitably heroic -- Saint Saens was, after all, France's premier 19th century musical hero. My only complaint is that, in his portrayal of the composer's verve and elan, Ozawa seems to have misplaced some of the subtleties in Le Rouet D'Omphale.
Despite that sligtht impefection [and it is slight], it's a marvellous disc.