In some ways this is the most interesting of Gergiev’s Mahler to date. Some aspects of this Fifth completely wrong-foot you: its inwardness is unexpected, its drama and dynamism uncharacteristically low-key. But one thing is certain – Gergiev is mindful of Mahler’s continuing quest for a sparer and purer kind of music. Alma tells us how she encouraged him to strip down the scoring for a greater transparency; he in turn found a new stillness and tranquillity at the eye of the storm. Under Gergiev, that second part of the first part – the so-called second movement – is hardly the wholesale venting of the spleen that the likes of Bernstein give us (it lacks tautness, propulsion) but between panic attacks the sense of solitude and self-examination is quietly devastating.

Gergiev clearly takes his cue for the opening of the symphony from Mahler’s “Little Drummer Boy” – quiet, desolate, and sad. I myself think Mahler heard a more projected reediness from the woodwinds in evoking the rough-hewn street-band effect – and that sudden explosion of anger and grief at the heart of the movement feels calculated and overly controlled.

Still, the most original part of the piece is the huge transitional Scherzo and here again there is a frustrating dichotomy between the greyness of the movement’s bracing feel-good moments and the heart-stopping vistas opened up by the LSO’s excellent horns, led by David Pyatt. The stillness of those moments is most beautiful and that strangely half-hearted attempt to start up the dance again in pizzicato strings is possessed of real poignancy, with one dark cloud of curdled harmony emerging that I can honestly say I’ve never registered before.

The Adagietto is darker and heavier in tone than I think appropriate, though I can absolutely see the logic in Gergiev’s thinking as its thematic material becomes airborne in the finale. The lightness on the string here, the transparency and rhythmic ebullience, is fresh and cleansing.

At least I feel ambivalence this time around. I couldn’t live with this Fifth but I’m glad I’ve heard it. The one to have and to hold is Bernstein’s Vienna Philharmonic account, still startling after all these years.