Mr Romijn’s essay is headed ‘The sunny Second Symphony’, a view which Fischer’s essentially lyric view of the work appears to endorse. For some, the symphony is more an essay in sunshine and shadow – with shadows which can on occasion seem very deep indeed. That said, this wonderfully lucid and finely realised reading does not suppress these elements; it merely refuses to underline them. Listening to the performance, I was reminded of Sir Adrian Boult’s remark to Roy Plomley that he would rather have eight scores on his desert island than eight gramophone records. What Fischer and his players give us is the score.

I was less taken with Fischer’s accounts of the two overtures. The Tragic Overture’s lengthy exposition mixes trenchancy and Sibelian chill in ideal measure but there is a rather too easeful account of the overture’s wraith-like central development. As for the Academic Festival Overture, this emerges as more academic than festive. (Never before have I heard echoes here of the First Symphony!) No, on this occasion it is the symphony which is the thing.