Conductor-composers tackling Brahms symphonies on disc aren’t exactly thin on the ground: think of Bernstein, Furtwängler, Gielen, Klemperer, Kubelík, Walter and Weingartner, to name just a random handful. Of that group Gielen is probably the most creatively progressive and Leif Segerstam follows in his stead, adventuring among novel sonorities with an abundance of imagination. I wish I had the knowledge and experience to place his Symphony No 289 in the context of its 288 predecessors (or indeed its 20 odd successors), but I can’t bluff. What I can tell you is that Segerstam claims some parallels with Sibelius’s Seventh – a feature No 289 shares with some of his other symphonies – inasmuch as it is similar in length to the Sibelius and is also built of various connecting sections. The sound canvas is framed either side by pianos, with a wealth of percussion (including what sounds like a thunder sheet) and a large gathering of standard instruments, the effects conjured ranging from sustained drama to relative delicacy. The work is subtitled When a Cat Visited, meaning notes borne on to the manuscript paper by a wondering moggie. ‘One should just follow the track made with the paws’, claims Segerstam, ‘and at the end enjoy the purring motor which was much better than the electric shakes for massage installed in hospital beds.’ I’m impressed. This is obviously no commonplace stray.

However, I wouldn’t try using Segerstam’s Brahms Second as an aid to vigorous massaging. If you do, you’ll be wasting your time. Aside from the uncommonly broad tempo for the first movement (with repeat, 22'05"), why such a conspicuous slamming on of the brakes at 3'30", where Brahms’s quasi ritenente (‘as if slowing down’) is taken as a cue to disrupt the flow? Both here and elsewhere the symphony weighs in far too heavily and one longs for some semblance of light and shade. Indeed, only at the very end of the work does the waking Segerstam dramatically up the pace, as if he’s suddenly remembered that we have a train to catch. Alas, it’s too late: the train left the platform long ago and in any case we’ve all fallen asleep. Sorry to have a downer on this but it’s ultimately non-competitive, though I’d always be happy to visit another of Segerstam’s own symphonies, preferably a group of them with a disc to themselves.