‘There’s one piece by Philip Glass that I really like.’‘Which one?’‘Any one.’Old joke. Awfully droll, eh? And, for a reviewer, not far from the truth if you substitute ‘recommend’ for ‘really like’. If you’ve already got some Glass CDs isn’t this more of the same? And if you haven’t, why buy this one in particular? Beats me, guv.

The Third Symphony, for strings only, contains some of Glass’s most gentle, subtle textures, as well as the usual trademarks: scales running up, scales running down, chugging chords, spiralling melodies, jabbing chords, throbbing bass-lines. Apparently designed to treat every musician as a soloist, its potency derives from the textural weight of the different string groupings and their lively interaction, not radically different from the riffing techniques of pre-Second World War ‘territory’ jazz bands. The second movement, a scherzoid kind of perpetuum mobile, seems neurotic not because there is no tonal centre but because the music constantly wanders around that centre without ever settling on it. The third contains some beautiful if basic counterpoint. The edgy power of the finale prompts stunning playing from the Bournemouth strings.

The Second Symphony is allegedly an exercise in polytonality and harmonic ambiguity. In the context of Glass’s strongly diatonic oeuvre that may be so, but there’s really nothing to frighten the horses, unless they have an aversion to exuberant mêlées of glittering textures, sinuous tunes, brightly dancing brass and skittering woodwind.

Both symphonies were originally recorded for Nonesuch by Dennis Russell Davies, but Alsop and the Bournemouth SO’s supple, intelligent, well-focused performances are not at all overshadowed by those earlier recordings.