A dozen or so years ago, Andrew Litton presided over a memorable all-Bernstein concert for Virgin Classics (9/91) that showed that the Bournemouth orchestra could swing with the best of them; now it’s the turn of new principal conductor Marin Alsop to put them through their paces. Very sassily they strut, too, in the exuberant outer numbers of On the Town, although it’s the cool, translucent poise of the ‘Pas de deux’ centrepiece that really took my fancy.

It’s a similar tale in the symphonic suite from On the Waterfront. Alsop displays a special sympathy for this score’s intimate undertow, investing softer music with a tingling atmosphere and lyrical poetry that consistently ignite the imagination, and moulding the love theme with a compassionate warmth and vulnerability which all but match the composer’s unforgettable NYPO version. Not, I hasten to add, that there’s any shortage of red-blooded drama or brazen spectacle, even though Mike Clements’s otherwise excitingly dynamic sound-frame does expose some slight thinness of violin tone.

As for the Chichester Psalms, Alsop masterminds a polished, communicative and beautifully sprung account which attains eloquent heights in the soothing setting of Psalm 23 for boy treble and mixed choir (Thomas Kelly and the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus – admirable, both) as well as the strings’ impassioned plea that launches the last movement.

All told, then, a conspicuous success. In fact, my only moan concerns the comparatively stingy playing-time, although given the superior quality of the music-making and Naxos’s price-tag, I can’t see too many complaining.