The King's Singers a la Francaise is an oddity. I can imagine that the idea of framing Saint-Saens's Carnival of the Animals with little choral comments can work very well in concert. On record it is variably successful, when for all the ingenuity of Carl Davis in presenting each introduction, Saint-Saens more often than not has pre-empted the best and most obvious illustration of a particular animal—as when Davis's braying for the donkey is no match for Saint-saens's hee-haws. The first three introductions and the very last consist of close-harmony recitative with a hint of Anglican chant, but more effective are the little nuggets of part-songs which provide the rest, each leading smoothly into Saint-Saens. Best of all, perhaps, is the ''Aquarium'', where Davis takes the bull by the horns and simply adds choral parts as descant over the original score.
The snag in that item is the choice of target in Hiawyn Oram's poem. His scheme in most movements is to relate the particular animal to a modern—generally human—equivalent, the lion to the elder statesman, wild asses to jet-setting businessmen and so on. ''Aquarium'' sets its target at drug-peddlers with no sense of irony that I can perceive, and it leaves a nasty taste. In any case there is too little wit and too much obscurity in all the poems. I am sorry too that Davis and the orchestra, not to mention the soloists Howard Shelley and Hilary Macnamara, are consigned to the mid-distance. The King's Singers are the stars, it is true, but Saint-Saens provides the raison d'etre, and one needs a sharper focus for him, which in any case these excellent players certainly deserve.
In the Faure too the optional choral parts are too prominent, the more distracting, when a solo alto top line is very different from the misty sounds Faure obviously conceived. It makes an attractive item none the less, and the Auvergne folk-songs (nothing to do with Canteloube) are delightful examples of a recognizable King's Singers genre, alternately witty and sweet, with Bailero (here re-labelled Le baylere) just as sensuous in close-harmony as in radiant soprano tone.'