To begin a complete cycle with Mahler’s Alpha and Omega is presumably deliberate, a means of establishing symphonic continuities and discontinuities over the quarter century which divides them. Or maybe Simax yoked them together in the interests of economy. Either way, this first instalment suggests an interpretative approach more in tune with the later works.

In the First Symphony, comparisons with Bernstein – every single phrase weighed and invested with meaning – or Chailly’s more objective approach with the same orchestra – are perhaps unfair. However attentive the playing, the Oslo Philharmonic doesn’t compete in the première league of Amsterdam’s (Royal) Concertgebouw. Dynamic and interpretative extremes are in short supply throughout, particularly from the strings. Whether this reflects the exigencies of live recording (the natural concert hall balance favours the wind and timps) or has more to do with Jansons’s refusal to overplay Mahler’s youthful rhetoric is a moot point. Barbirolli’s Hallé was hardly a world class orchestra either, but no-one ever accused his performances of a lack of emotional commitment. The opening of Jansons’s finale, though well executed, needs greater heft from the strings. Similarly, at 3'51" (fig 16) in the same movement, the sehr gesangvoll really cries out for something more emotive. While the horns give their all in the coda, Jansons’s accelerando doesn’t quite convince after his reluctance to ‘interpret’ elsewhere. The applause suggests a warm reception rather than an ecstatic one.

At more than 81 minutes, the performance of the Ninth has been squeezed onto a single disc. Karajan and, more recently, Abbado have shown us that this is a work that responds well to a ‘cooler’ rendering. But Jansons seems uncomfortable with the elements of parody in the writing, which means that the first and last movements are more successful than the inner two. While tempo is only ever part of the story, I wondered why this Rondo-Burleske needed to last 14'05"? Walter dispatched it in 11'13" in 1938. True, intonation in the high woodwind is better than on many a starrier account, yet the end result might have benefited had the playing been ‘dirtier’. And again, the string tone in the last movement won’t efface memories of Bernstein or Barbirolli in Berlin. That said, the closing pages never fail to move, and the Oslo audience remain commendably silent. Applause, thankfully, has been excised.

One final oddity. The booklet interview with Jansons rather misrepresents Mahler’s reception history in Russia, while appearing to credit Oskar Fried’s 1924 recording of the Second Symphony to a Russian orchestra. Something would seem to have been lost in translation.