In some ways this is an impressive set; in others a somewhat frustrating experience. The evidence confirms Mariss Jansons as a hugely effective artistic director for the Pittsburgh Symphony (a post he held from 1997 until this year and from whose Heinz Hall home, during 1999-2004, these recordings are taken) and a superb orchestral trainer. Whatever one’s views on his Tchaikovsky Fourth as interpretation (excitability, tweaked dynamics, unusually flexible tempi, etc), no one could question the quality of the playing, or the impact of the performance. Beethoven’s Eighth is swift, assertive and strongly accented and Schubert’s Unfinished lyrical but also unusually forceful – the second movement even more dramatic than the first.

There are two significant orchestral showpieces, Strauss’s ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’, the strings sleek and alluring, and a teasing, volatile La valse that erupts for an accelerating coda. But why so many symphonic ‘torsos’? A Mahler 7 first movement is by turns fiery and languorous and promises something very special – but that’s all we’re given. Bruckner No 7’s Adagio suggests an animated overview rather in the manner of Eduard van Beinum, but in the absence of the other three movements, we can merely guess how the whole work sounded. The first movement of the Brahms First has both warmth and stature, and the unhurried Allegro from Shostakovich No 10 reveals a mass of cleanly articulated detail. Then again the closing movements of Sibelius’s Second are tiresomely pulled around (the finale in particular) and the fourth and fifth movements of Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony though well played are unexceptional. The same goes for brief choral extracts from the Requiems of Verdi (terrific bass drum) and Mozart. More impressive by far is the Interlude from Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder…but why not gather together the best complete performances rather than confuse us with a box of mainly dismembered extracts? Nothing much more to say really, save that the sound is forward and beefy and the annotation pretty minimal.