London bus syndrome strikes: you wait over 20 years for a new recording of Khachaturian’s Second Symphony – dubbed ‘Symphony with the Bell’ by the Soviet critic Georgiy Khubov – and two come along almost simultaneously. Dmitry Yablonsky’s account (recorded in 2006) was finally released by Naxos in April, closely followed by Frank Beermann’s Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie recording on CPO, marking the start of a new Khachaturian edition.

The Second was written in 1943 at the Composers’ Union retreat in Ivanovo and was described by the composer as ‘a requiem of wrath, a requiem of protest against war and violence’. Khachaturian revised it the following year, including switching the inner movements around. It is typical ear-bursting Khachaturian, garish in its orchestration, with brazen brass and the regular rattle of the xylophone. It requires an unbuttoned approach.

While Yablonsky takes the opening movement at a more monumental pace, Beermann smooths Khachaturian’s rough edges. The shuddering bell motif at the outset is dark and brooding, but the second movement – a restless danse macabre – is too sedate. The third movement’s funeral march features a Dies irae sweetly intoned by the strings over slinky woodwinds intoning a paraphrase of an Armenian folksong, ‘Vorskan akhper’, which Khachaturian’s mother had sung to him as a child. Beermann moves this along well, although CPO’s weighty sound doesn’t capture the piano’s tolling as clearly as Naxos does for Yablonsky. The finale is grimly determined here, even slower than the composer’s own Vienna Philharmonic recording. My favourite recording remains Loris Tjeknavorian’s, which is much more urgent, revelling in the gaudy orchestration in wonderfully brash sound.

Beermann completes his disc with three concert arias Khachaturian dedicated to his wife Nina Makarova, where the voice is used like an orchestral instrument. Julia Bauer manages the Glière-like writing admirably.