These two sets of Grieg’s incidental music for Ibsen’s Peer Gynt break new ground in offering more of the dialogue than ever before. Both are based on live productions and gain in dramatic timing; both bring crisp, intense musical performances, vividly recorded though with speaking voices balanced much closer than the orchestra, particularly on Aeon. There is one striking contrast: the BIS set from Bergen is recorded in Norwegian, with English translations in the booklet; the Aeon set from Geneva has the dialogue in French with numbers sung in Norwegian.

The booklet, too, is designed for French-speakers only. That might seem to rule the set out; but the performances, particularly of the vocal soloists, are most impressive and Aeon cleverly offers a third disc with the musical numbers shorn of any dialogue, even the dramatic shouts at the end of ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’. One hopes that that will be issued separately.

The Bergen set is in many ways even more impressive, most strikingly when the inflections of the Norwegian dialogue are so much more in tune with the cadences of the music. The production is vividly dramatic and very well delivered.

The big question mark must be over how much of the dialogue one wants. Ruud and Tourniaire have more tracks with dialogue than without and many with no music at all. For most listeners, I imagine Neeme Järvi’s pioneering set with the Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra will prove ideal, with dialogue included only over the musical numbers. That allows all 26 numbers to be included on a two-disc set with ample room for the Sigurd Jorsalfar music as a fill-up.

Musically, Ruud offers some advantages, not least in the stronger, more characterful casting of Gynt in baritone Håkan Hagegård (Dietrich Henschel for Tourniaire is outstanding, too). The Solveigs are evenly matched, with Marita Solberg as sweet and pure as Barbara Bonney for Järvi, and Inger Dam-Jensen for Tourniaire. Ruud gains, too, from the extra range of the SACD recording.