Bruckner’s mighty Eighth, the ne plus ultra of his achievement as a symphonist, took three years to make and a further two and a half years to revise after Hermann Levi had looked askance at aspects of the orchestration and structure of this 1887 original. No one interested in comparing the two versions need be a musicologist or possess the relevant scores. Given a reasonable degree of familiarity with the Eighth in its finished form, the changes will be readily apparent.

A number of conductors have recorded the 1887 version, notably Eliahu Inbal (Telefunken, 6/84 – nla) and Georg Tintner, who made a pioneering 1982 recording with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada before returning to the work for Naxos in 1996. This latest recording by the Hamburg Philharmonic under Simone Young is purposeful and robust, a decent job by any standards. I would say, however, that the Tintner retains its competitive edge. With sound that is a touch lighter and cleaner, and tempi that are marginally broader, it is possible to determine rather more easily the nature of the original scoring and harmonic detailing. In addition to being ridiculously cheap, the two-CD Naxos set is also better filled. Where the new set has just the one work, the Naxos also includes a beautifully scaled account of the so-called Symphony No 0 (“Die Nullte”), the piece Bruckner worked on before, during and after the symphony he eventually chose to call his First.