This final instalment of Vladimir Ashkenazy’s latest live Rachmaninov retrospective offers more generous playing time than its companion discs but there are still pluses and minuses. While the music-making has the flair and authority you’d expect, neither sound nor packaging stands comparison with the very best. Unless of course you attended one of Ashkenazy’s recent Rachmaninov concerts, in which case the sky-blue-themed physical product should make a splendid memento!

Given Ashkenazy’s grand old man status, souvenir hunters won’t cavil at his occasional subjective moves. In the Third Symphony the first movement’s second subject is slowed to the point of incoherence towards the end of its initial cello phrase. On the other hand, Ashkenazy is ‘classical’ enough to take the exposition repeat which Mariss Jansons, a less excitable serial returnee to this repertoire, omits in his expert St Petersburg coupling of the same works. Piloted by a younger generation, often with more attenuated string sound than either conductor would deem appropriate, these scores can acquire a leaner, 20th-century profile. However, the riper view has its merits and Ashkenazy ensures that the (deliberately?) episodic finale of the Third Symphony retains suitably compulsive drive and snap where necessary. The coda is thrilling.

The Symphonic Dances pose interpretative problems solved by the veteran pianist-conductor, despite gestural awkwardness on the podium, several decades ago (Decca, 4/84). On that occasion he cut off the final stroke of the tam-tam rather than leaving it to vibrate open-endedly into the silence. Here we get a sort of halfway house. He has never ground to a halt for the unexpected reprise of ‘Blagosloven esi, Gospodi’ but now allows the tension to sag a little more. Remarkably the producer, then as now, is Andrew Cornall. It’s just a pity that the Royal Festival Hall lacks the Concertgebouw’s lustrous glow: the Philharmonia’s rich sonority is not flattered. Justifiably enthusiastic applause is retained after both works.