For The Carnival, Lang Lang is joined by his pianist wife Gina Alice. It begins splendidly with the lion loudly roaring his royal march, the clucking hens brutally executed and the two wild asses dashing away at a true presto furioso. Then we reach ‘L’éléphant’, and problems begin with the two pianos thoroughly upstaging the double bass, rendering the humorously lumbering ‘Danse des Sylphes’, let alone the quote from the Midsummer Night’s Dream Scherzo, barely audible. ‘Aquarium’ and ‘Volière’ similarly become all about the secondary piano parts, though chapeau to the clarinet player in ‘Le coucou au fond des bois’ who, for once, begins f and ends ppp as marked, playing further and further away ‘dans la coulisse’ as Saint-Saëns directs. But why the abrupt unscripted change of tempo in the middle of ‘Fossiles’? It’s all OK-ish but no competition for the Capuçon brothers and ensemble (Erato, 1/04).

Next comes the most popular of Saint-Saëns’s five piano concertos, one currently available in over 100 different iterations but which Lang Lang announces in the booklet is his ‘mission to rediscover’, for according to him it is ‘a forgotten masterpiece’. ‘“Not many great pianists play it in concert”, he admits’ (booklet). Those among the pianist’s myriad fans new to classical music will thank their hero for rescuing it from obscurity. And, like The Carnival, if you were hearing this old warhorse for the first time in Lang Lang’s hands, you might well be impressed. Though the orchestra is set well back in the sound picture, the first movement is indeed well played – rhapsodic, dramatic, well-observed – the second not so much, beginning with the opening timps, played far from leggiero and piano, and the second subject danced in hobnail boots rather than the elegant slippers of a French dancing master. For the finale, with tempos pulled this way and that and the string dialogue obscured in the chorale, I would turn (as I would for the whole concerto), to Darré, Rubinstein, Hough, Chamayou or Grosvenor for elucidation.

One of the album’s elements is the welcome mix of genre and texture. So now the orchestra is dispensed with and after Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte – ‘“It’s one of my favourite tunes”, he admits’ (booklet) – husband and wife then give us Debussy’s early Petite Suite for piano four hands, delightfully and expressively played, though not as stylish (or lightly pedalled) as Steven Osborne and Paul Lewis on their acclaimed Hyperion recording (4/21). Then it is Lang Lang on his own with an admirable and imaginative selection of solos, including transcriptions of three French pop classics by the Bulgarian pianist and composer Émile Naoumoff (no mention in the booklet) and five from that newly fashionable stable of ‘forgotten French female composers’. I was particularly glad to be introduced to Étude No 10 in F sharp minor from Louise Farrenc’s 30 Études in all the major and minor keys, and to ‘Romance sans paroles’ by Charlotte Sohy (1887-1955), a new name to me.

So a mixed bag in terms of both performance success and repertoire, with a booklet that is part fashion shoot, part interview, part music-lite essay. Looks good. It will sell like hot cakes. No fewer than 10 sound engineers and six different types of producers are listed as having contributed to its creation. Is this a record?