The blossoming rapport between Thomas Adès and the Britten Sinfonia documented on the first two volumes of their Beethoven cycle is in full bloom here on the final instalment. Indeed, the precision and poise of the orchestral playing is quite impressive, particularly given some of the conductor’s daringly brisk tempos, and the fact that the recordings were made at one-off concerts.

The finale of the Seventh, for example, goes like a shot. Adès starts more or less at Beethoven’s metronome mark but keeps his foot pressed ever so slightly on the accelerator so the movement seems to gradually gain momentum. It’s thrilling, of course, though I’m ultimately more excited by Adès and the orchestra’s generous phrasing (try the third movement’s Trio) and the range of colours they find in passages of harmonic consequence (as at 10'48" in the opening Vivace). An odd gear shift in the Allegretto is momentarily disconcerting (listen starting at 4'18") but a very minor blemish on such an expressively forthright reading, and the central major-key section is particularly affecting in the way it suggests the warm glow of a faded yet cherished memory.

Similar qualities are on display in the Eighth. Note, for instance, how the bar lines in the first movement melt away even as the semiquavers bristle with energy, resulting in an overarching sense of lyrical nobility, or the Brahmsian lilt of the Menuetto’s Trio. And in the finale, the orchestra’s fizzy, feather-light playing is utterly delightful (how charmingly they point the passage at 1'25", for example).

The Ninth begins with an ominous hush, the descending two-note figures dripping over faintly buzzing sextuplets like raindrops presaging a deluge. And, in fact throughout the movement, Adès underscores how deftly (and unnervingly) the music moves between fragility and force. He zeroes in on the extraordinary aspects of the score – the disorientating texture at 12'18", say – yet at the same time there’s something a little cool about this performance. Dynamic contrasts in the Scherzo are underplayed, and the slow movement lacks a sense of inwardness and intimacy (where, for instance, is the mezza voce when the first violins enter?).

The finale catches fire now and again, as in bass Matthew Rose’s riveting delivery of the opening recitative, but all too often the performance suggests a dress rehearsal – odd, given the electric quality of the previous two symphonies, and the hot slap-in-the-face of Gerald Barry’s The Eternal Recurrence (1999), recorded in the same programme. Barry’s Nietzsche setting sounds anything but philosophic (hard to believe Mahler set some of the same text in his Third Symphony). Brassy to the point of garishness, it’s a high-wire act for the soprano, and Jennifer France walks the line fearlessly.