Haitink’s previous recorded Resurrections date from the late 1960s and the early 1990s. In this one, captured live over four concert dates in November 2008, he has drawn back from the dourness and deliberation of his Berlin account to offer a scrupulously prepared mainstream reading that only hardened sceptics will dismiss as merely stolid.

Not that any one incident is allowed to destabilise the organic development of the whole. Those accustomed to Rattle or Bernstein may be underwhelmed by the choir’s call to arms at “Bereite dich” and, as you’d expect, Haitink eschews Solti’s ear-grabbing attack at the very start of the work. While the Chicago orchestra retains a corporate sonority of boundless heft, for good or ill some of its edges have been smoothed away. Woodwind detailing is exquisite if invariably rather strait-laced in matters of nuancing. After civilised and articulate accounts of the Andante moderato and Scherzo, Haitink’s Urlicht is notable for the way Christianne Stotijn’s rich mezzo is integrated within a silky orchestral texture. The finale is firm and objective, the distancing of offstage brass nicely calibrated and the first choral entry exquisitely hushed (Miah Persson seems initially ill-at-ease).

Those who like more rubato in their Mahler – and perhaps a more self-consciously transcendent kind of experience – will look elsewhere. Lacking the ease and subtlety of the finest studio recordings, CSO Resound’s sound is immediate and suitably impactful once a higher-than-usual playback level is set. The conductor’s many admirers need not hesitate although they may regret that applause has been excised. They will be rewarded with an attractive, well illustrated package containing detailed annotations, texts, translations and performer listings.