They say the apple never falls far from the tree, so it’s perhaps not surprising to find Paavo Järvi’s second recording of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony bearing a marked resemblance to his father’s 1989 recording with the LPO. Not that this should be taken as good news. That performance, I reported in 1990, lacks a properly developed Bruckner sound palette, as well as revealing an uncertain grasp of line and argument. Plus, Järvi Snr takes nearly half an hour over the Adagio.

The difference between Paavo Järvi’s new Zurich Tonhalle performance and his own earlier, quicker-moving and better played Frankfurt RSO recording is largely down to the orchestra. Well versed in Bruckner’s music during Eliahu Inbal’s 26 years as chief conductor (1974 90), the Frankfurt players knew the Eighth Symphony, not only in its familiar final form but in the original 1887 version, which they successfully recorded with Inbal (Telefunken, 6/84 – nla).

A relative newcomer to the Tonhalle Orchestra (he took over in 2019), Paavo Järvi has yet to develop with it a comparable degree of confidence and familiarity with Bruckner’s music. As to his own post-Frankfurt reading, it is, like his father’s, too often lacking in impetus and musical focus. From the development onwards, the first movement is an oddly inert affair culminating in a delivery of that chilling triple-forte brass and timpani climax that’s disappointingly tame. Not that the recording helps, with its overall lack of immediacy and (a particular problem) backwardly placed brass.

If Järvi’s new account of the slow movement seems less protracted than his father’s, it’s mainly because the shorter Nowak text is being used. This, and the two outer movements, can make an overwhelming effect at slowish tempos if the orchestra is the Vienna or Berlin Philharmonic and the conductor is a Karajan (whose tempos in his third and last recording of the Eighth are not all that slow) or a Giulini, but not with this orchestra and conductor.

Järvi’s only departure from his monumental approach is in the Scherzo, which he takes at quite a lick. This can work in the context of a generally brisker performance of the symphony – van Beinum in Amsterdam, Barbirolli with the Hallé – but that’s far from being the case here.