Who is it for, this odd coupling drawn from two concerts given in 2008? Supporting the project is the Polska Music grant programme of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, tasked with enhancing the visibility of Polish classical music in the wider world. And it is not just concert attendees who will be pleased to have this spectacularly deft and rigorous account of Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra on disc. Of course, there are many fine studio recordings of a piece which has latterly found a more secure place in the international repertoire than the challenging works of the composer’s maturity. But Saraste is in his element here, clarifying the composer’s bejewelled textural mosaics while driving forwards and generally inspiring the players to give of their very best. The performance is tauter than Lutosławski’s own from the mid-1970s, still available on EMI, and the concluding applause is not excised.

The Sibelius items seem less competitive. With two complete symphony cycles to his credit, Saraste is an old Sibelius hand whose crisp, forthright manner is certainly not the only way to tackle these works. The ‘lone wolf howling in a faraway forest’ which Andrew Mellor evokes in the booklet-notes barely features. There’s scarcely a hint of mystery in this civilised music-making, nor will you find the kind of theatricality associated with Leonard Bernstein’s mid-1960s LP pairing of these scores. Perhaps Saraste feels that such effortful readings tell us more about the composer’s struggle to perfect his composition than the Apollonian end result. Bright and efficient notwithstanding some smudging at climactic points, Saraste eschews the monumental.

As usual with this label, sound quality is impressive, certainly less parched and pungent than what one hears from a stalls seat in the hall. For real pianissimos you can always opt for Osmo Vänskä who, having conducted all the symphonies live in concert with the LPO as elsewhere, is setting down his own second cycle for BIS in Minnesota.