You never quite know what you’ll get on record next from Paavo Järvi, though there was the slightest clue some John Adams might be on the way given the composer was in residence at the conductor’s Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra for the duration of the 2021-22 season. That makes this recording a little more than a homage from a distance. Adams was personally involved in its preparation and had recently conducted the orchestra in some of the works included.

The quality of the music is in no doubt. This is vintage ’80s and ’90s Adams: My Father Knew Charles Ives arguably remains one of his most compelling and galvanising works, as filled with the notion of bold new musical horizons opening up as anything by the 30-something Stravinsky. Naive and Sentimental Music would have made a nice addition.

On record, two competitors loom large. Adams’s own recording of that piece with the BBC Symphony Orchestra has a touch more intensity and also feels better produced and more colourful; the sense of a new rhythm-based aesthetic breaking out in ‘The Mountain’ is that bit more eye-widening, while the Ivesian invading forces in ‘Concord’ feel more invasive under Adams. But there is plenty to enjoy in these fine performances, the hints of sleaze in ‘The Lake’ (excellent wah-wah trumpets) and nicely captured sepia tone in particular.

Another Nonesuch album offers competition for the two other significant works but here Järvi has the edge. His account of Slonimsky’s Earbox is more structurally interesting and on-point than that from Kent Nagano’s Hallé and the momentum is thrilling – Adams’s own frustration with the aesthetic making itself felt, even if the Hallé better capture the sense of mystery around 8'39". The string slashes of Järvi’s Tonhalle are razor-sharp there and following suit, they deliver a knockout Lollapalooza in which you can tell they’re having fun – more so than Nagano’s Hallé. All those competing rhythmic agendas built from the bottom of the orchestra upwards – you can’t help but wonder how much Sibelius Adams was listening to in the ’90s. A very bright-eyed Tromba lontana completes a good contextual snapshot of what the Harmonielehre-era Adams was up to with orchestra. So, Harmonielehre next?