The stylistic scope of these recent Great Conductors releases is tellingly exemplified by two key recordings of music from Wagner’s Tristan, Albert Coates’s reckless Love Duet from 1929 (with Frida Leider and Lauritz Melchior in delirious accord) and Stokowski’s sumptuous symphonic synthesis of much the same music, recorded in Philadelphia in 1960. I fondly remember an old anti-Wagnerian friend swooning over the Stokowski, quite unaware of what he was listening to until I spilled the beans and he recoiled, humbly disillusioned. Indeed the pleading expressiveness of Stokowski’s reading recalls the best top-drawer film composers, the Liebesnacht especially. Coates on the other hand drives fast and wild, his top-of-the-range singers responding with like minds though the ‘venue split’ between the Berlin State Opera (‘Isolde! Geliebte! …’) and London’s Kingsway Hall (for the LSO, in ‘O sink hernieder…’) looks worse than it sounds.

Russian-born but partly British-educated, Coates was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov and a répétiteur to Nikisch, which helps explain the lashings of colour and temperament that inform virtually all his recorded performances. Witness the relentless fist slamming of Borodin Two’s first movement, or the candid lyricism of its Andante. Ravel’s La valse launches to what sounds like a honking bass tuba but closes with the sort of calculated chaos one dreams about but rarely hears. By Coates’s usual standards Liszt’s First Mephisto Waltz is less hectic, more mellow than I’d expected, but his (cut) Francesca da Rimini is a hot-headed onslaught, definitely not for those who value pristine musical surfaces above visceral excitement. The Oberon and Hänsel und Gretel overtures rise to the bait of Coates’s vigorous baton, whereas Tod und Verklärung is refreshingly direct, both in gesture and implied emotion. The remaining Wagner extracts tally with what I would imagine was the composer’s own high-velocity approach, though I’m not sure what he would have made of a harmonium (?) going proxy for Rhine Maidens in Coates’s karaoke-style Entry of the Gods.

Ward Marston’s extremely clean transfers have been skilfully ‘digitised’ by Paul Baily, whose sterling technical efforts grace the whole series.

Apart from Stokowski’s aforementioned Wagner, the items on his set are musically variable. I was less than overwhelmed by the nonagenarian’s Sibelius No 1 and Brahms Tragic Overture, remarkably vital though they are. A previous Stokowski version of the Symphony (1950, RCA) is more securely focused, while the Brahms is swift, fairly straight and just…well, very good. On the other hand Ibert’s Escales (French National Radio SO) and Turina’s La oración del torero (Stokowski SO) are indelibly memorable, both of them kaleidoscopic in the way you’d expect, while Nielsen’s Second Symphony – a mono 1967 broadcast with the Danish State Radio SO – has real gravitas. Best, in my view, is the richly textured Andante malincolio, though the rest is just a mite heavy on its feet. Liszt’s First Hungarian Rhapsody gains in energy what it loses in minor cuts and there’s a trio of charming Grainger miniatures with the composer himself at the piano. Also included are Dukas’s La Péri Fanfare and Glière’s ‘Russian Sailor’s Dance’. It’s an enjoyable collection, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a ‘Best of…’.

By contrast the set devoted to the Polish-Swiss conductor Paul Kletzki was a revelation. Right from the off – Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini Overture, thrillingly played by the Philharmonia in 1951 – you sense someone in absolute command of the orchestra. A live 1967 Tchaikovsky Fifth with the Bavarian RSO retains Kubelík’s ‘old-style’ orchestral layout (divided violin desks) and relates a reading that while not perfect in every executive detail is abundantly warm and communicative. Just sample the soaring cello countermelody at 6'09" into the first movement or Kletzki’s audible command for a more ‘singing’ tone at 9'47" into the first movement of Brahms’s Fourth (or at least that’s what it sounds as if he’s saying). There the Czech Philharmonic is heard to fine effect in 1965 (in mono), the lower strings rolling majestically at the close of the Andante moderato. Both readings are infinitely malleable: I disagreed with them in principle but loved them in practice. And there are the other studio recordings, principally Mendelssohn’s overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Israel PO, mono) and Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien (Philharmonia, stereo), shaped and sustained with expertise. There’s also the added bonus of Hugh Bean playing Wagner’s ‘Träume’, most beautifully I might add.

Sir Adrian Boult’s collection is scarcely less impressive. Most important are the discographical rarities, Franck’s D minor Symphony (in stereo – the Philharmonia under a pseudonym, I’m told) and Schubert Fourth (LPO, mono), both from 1959, and both granted strong, purposeful readings, structure-conscious but by no means unfeeling. I was surprised that for the Franck Boult very uncharacteristically seats his first and second violins together. Happily this is not the case in Tchaikovsky’s Theme and Variations, which is extracted from the admirable 1974 LPO recording of the complete Third Suite. It’s a dashing performance, at times so spontaneous-sounding that it could easily have been taped live. The Schumann Fourth (1956, stereo) has occasional quirks but convinces by dint of its consistent concentration. Walton’s Portsmouth Point (1967) sounds delightfully unbuttoned, Berlioz’s Rob Roy a little foursquare, Sibelius’s Tempest Prelude elemental but clear-headed, and Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture – with the New Philharmonia (1967) – unexpectedly momentous. And if you need convincing proof of Sir Adrian’s lightness of touch in less demanding fare, there’s Wolf’s twilit Italian Serenade winningly played by the Philharmonia in 1957.

In the case of the great Czech conductor Václav Talich, whose attentive ear and profound musicianship run parallel with Boult’s, the collector in me baulked at the inclusion of Smetana’s ‘Sárka’ and Dvovák’s New World, both from 1954 and frequently reissued. But they’re marvellous performances, so utterly natural and, in the case of ‘Sárka’, extraordinarily gripping. Dvovák’s The Water Goblin, again from 1954 (live this time), is buoyant and perceptively phrased. Smetena’s Prague Carnival, a rarely heard studio recording from the previous year, sounds less ‘off the wall’ as music than under Kubelík (BRSO, DG) but somehow more solid. Suk’s Serenade for strings is given a performance that is as near perfect as anyone has the right to expect, utterly steeped in affection and confirmation of Talich’s pre-eminence as the leading Suk interpreter. Add Talich’s own action-packed Janácek Cunning Little Vixen suite (1954), a pleasant little B flat string Symphony by Benda (1954) and a bright-textured Mozart 33 (1954, live) and you have the basis of an ideal Talich ‘starter-pack’. The ‘extras’ are Tchaikovsky’s ‘Preghiera’ (a rare sampling of Talich’s work with the Slovak Phil) and Novák’s ‘Lovers’, both extracted from complete recordings but nice to have as ‘fillers’. As with the rest of this invaluable series, the annotations are both readable and authoritative.