This has been, to date, a most distinguished Beethoven cycle, with keen-eared music-making, vividly and unobtrusively conducted, winning golden opinions in these columns and beyond. Recorded live in Vienna’s Musikverein in the late winter and early spring of 2017, the symphonies have so far been released chronologically concert by concert. Which raises the question, what happened on May 17 and 18, 2017, when, for the first time, a note of hysteria appears to have crept into the proceedings?

This is at its worst in the finale of the Eighth Symphony with which the concerts presumably ended, though the symphony’s first movement also has moments when the orchestra appear caught in the toils of their own frenzy. Orchestras can, and do, ‘take off’ in performance. ‘They were out in the woods today’, Nikisch would say of his Berlin Philharmonic. Still, wonderfully as the Vienna Symphony has been playing during Jordan’s tenure as chief conductor, it is not the Berlin Philharmonic. The Berliners don’t muddle phrases or race ahead of the beat as the Vienna players occasionally do on the wilder shores of this performance of the Eighth.

Two years prior to this Vienna cycle, Jordan filmed all nine symphonies with the orchestra of the Paris Opéra (ArtHaus Musik, 12/16). It was a distinguished cycle, though there, too, the performance of the Eighth Symphony didn’t entirely work; not because it was overdriven but because it was too sedate. Jordan’s view has clearly evolved, though without the orchestra having had time to gather in all the notes at the speeds he now requires.

His reading of the Pastoral Symphony has also evolved, though with rather more agreeable results. If the Paris Pastoral was a joy from start to finish – the leisurely emanations of an alert but contented mind – the new performance is a good deal more urgent in both gait and gaze, with Jordan sending forensically searching glances deep into the musical shrubbery as he hurries by.

There are the makings here of a revelatory reading of the Pastoral, a work that never stops giving. Even so, there are places in this particular performance which could have done with more consideration (the string colloquies at the start of the ‘Scene by the Brook’) or been given more breathing-space. I think of Jordan’s none-too-jolly fairgoers seemingly rushing for cover even before the storm arrives.