Less happily the “4 Movements” are not presented in chronological order. Totenfeier comes first, a dry run for the opening funeral rites of the Symphony No 2; Riccardo Chailly (Decca, 6/02) was the first to include the score as a supplement to that definitive work. Michael Kennedy’s booklet-note for the present disc is not altogether supportive of the notion that the Adagio, re-contextualised by the now ubiquitous Deryck Cooke performing version of the Tenth, is best heard separately. Several conductors, including Sir Simon Rattle (EMI, 12/92), present Blumine as an appendix to the Symphony No 1 of which it was originally part, hence allowing one to programme it back in. Paavo Järvi concludes with his most neglected historical curio. What the Wild Flowers Tell Me is Britten’s (now seemingly redundant) scaled-down extract from the Third Symphony, prepared in 1941 at a time when Mahler was rarely performed.

Virgin Classics has been here before with Karl Anton Rickenbacher’s Bamberg selection, latterly paired with music by Hindemith (11/89^R), only you won’t find the Britten arrangement there. Järvi secures typically elegant and refined playing throughout and the sound is excellent. Notwithstanding commitments elsewhere he is currently music director of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and the relationship would seem to be working well. He obviously believes that the “4 Movements” are worth hearing in this form – this is not a rehearse-record project but one he has toured with – and you might just agree with him.