It is good to be reminded that the Royal Concertgebouw is not the only fine orchestra in Holland. The Netherlands Philharmonic (not to be confused with the Radio Orchestra) was founded as recently as 1986, a merger of the Amsterdam Philharmonic, the Utrecht Symphony and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. With 130 players, it is claimed to be the largest orchestral organisation in the country. As well as giving concerts in the Concertgebouw and elsewhere, the orchestra play for Netherlands Opera, but so far they have made relatively few recordings. This season, Yakov Kreizberg (best known in the UK as the principal conductor of the Bournemouth orchestra over five seasons) took over from Hartmut Haenchen as their chief conductor. Here he leads strong, incisive performances, well played and brilliantly recorded, if transferred at a slightly lower level than usual.

Kreizberg takes a fresh, direct view of the Dvorák. He eases the tempo for the haunting little flute melody of the third subject in the first movement, but that is as near an idiosyncratic approach as he gets, and in the slow movement he takes a very spacious, steady view, with dynamic extremes well caught by the recording and with the strings admirably refined. Crisp ensemble and articulation mark the Scherzo and finale, as they do in the similarly alert performance of Romeo and Juliet. Kreizberg builds the great love theme into a richly romantic climax with no suspicion of sentimentality or exaggeration.

It seems sad that there are no records from the conductor’s time in Bournemouth, for Kreizberg readily conveys liveliness and electricity here in much-recorded works that might easily invite routine performances. Though there are many rival recordings of both works that might claim priority – the outstanding New World listed above, for example, with still finer recorded sound – this is the only current disc (CD or SACD) that couples these two favourite works, an obvious point in its favour.