This is the final instalment of Andrew Litton’s Prokofiev symphony cycle, one of the most sonically sophisticated in the lists. Only don’t look to Bergen for the raw sonorities associated with those old Prokofiev LPs emanating from communist Russia. For all that his sequence opts for the later, Soviet incarnation of the Fourth, Litton is closer to Marin Alsop in rendering this music as full-blooded mainstream fare.

In the ubiquitous Classical Symphony Litton is out-sparkled by Thomas Søndergård’s recent account. Marshalling what sounds like a bigger band, the American conductor too narrowly skirts clumsiness in his self-consciously moulded Gavotte. That said, it was generous indeed to give us three symphonies. Søndergård couples the First and Fifth while Pentatone present Vladimir Jurowski in the Second and Third alone. One wonders whether BIS’s extended-play physical product might bamboozle older systems.

Towards the end of his life Prokofiev intended to recast the two-movement Second, having long since retreated from the modernist aesthetic exemplified by its initial 12 minutes of ‘iron and steel’. Litton unearths unsuspected textural subtleties there and conveys real affection for the subsequent theme and variations. Prokofiev’s lovely melody makes a quite different impression under Jurowski, chaste even when fleshed out, piano figuration to the fore, whereas Litton can be positively schmaltzy, letting the strings dominate. This is not to say that he lacks sensitivity or fails to set teeth on edge (in a good way) in the raucous, climactic variation. In truth neither goes for maximal animal excitement.

Litton’s Third is noticeably tauter than Jurowski’s and some will count that a plus in what purports to be a symphony rather than a suite: the material derives from the occult opera The Fiery Angel. The warm immediacy of the interpretation worked for me, but listeners prioritising creepy atmospherics and timbral specificity will probably prefer Jurowski, fronting the contemporary incarnation of Evgeny Svetlanov’s old orchestra.

Enhanced by apposite, unsensational artwork, the present issue takes its place at or near the top of a growing pile. The surround sound, a shade brighter than ideal, is a vast improvement on those shouty Soviet sound carriers. Even Neeme Järvi’s much-praised 1980s Prokofiev now feels like a bridge between sonic worlds.