The original 1874 version of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony is rarely heard nowadays. When Bruckner revised the score in 1878/80 he replaced an entire movement – the third – while fashioning leaner, fitter versions of the remaining three. By replacing his least effective Scherzo and Trio to date with what was destined to be one of his best loved, he effectively did for the 1874 version. With that new movement in place, there could be no going back as there would be with the generally less satisfactory Third Symphony. In its ‘finished’ form, the Fourth has a surer structure and what Robert Simpson dubbed ‘cleaner stonework’. But there are losses. As Eliahu Inbal’s pioneering 1983 Frankfurt recording was the first to reveal, the original version has an exuberance of both motion and colour that is peculiarly its own.

The new Linz Bruckner Orchestra account is driven rather than exuberant, with unforgiving tuttis and a brusquely played slow movement that is more Andantino marziale than Andante, quasi allegretto. The orchestra first came to Europe-wide prominence in 1942 as an elite radio ensemble whose guest conductors included Kabasta, Knappertsbusch, Schuricht and, by 1944, Furtwängler and Karajan. It is not quite in that league today. The gimcrack Scherzo is played with real verve but elsewhere Inbal and his Frankfurt players – the strings especially – are in a different league: less brutal, better able to show off the original version’s glowing, quasi-Wagnerian colours. Like this new disc, the Inbal is at budget price, a two-CD set that also includes Inbal’s classic account of the original version of the Third Symphony.