If the documentation didn’t suggest otherwise, one might be forgiven for thinking that these performances were the work of, if not two different orchestras, then two different conductors. The performance of the first movement of the Unfinished is decidedly old-school (I use the term as a compliment). An emotionally articulate reading, it creates the space needed to explore the music’s tragic dimension yet at the same time retains a strong sense of forward motion. The omission of the exposition repeat reinforces the sense of inexorability. The performance of the Great C major, by contrast, is free-flowing, light-textured and largely devoid of interest.

Both recordings were made live in concert in Vienna’s Musikverein during Philippe Jordan’s first season as the Vienna Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor. Why the performances should be so different is something of a mystery. Perhaps the April 2015 performances of the Great C major simply failed to fire. Or is Jordan one of those conductors whom the work eludes? (The list is a long and distinguished one.) If the recorded balances are to be believed, there are signs in the slow movement of the Unfinished of orchestral problems elsewhere: woodwind solos which don’t fully sing out and quiet string phrases which, in their vibrato-light modern manner, lack emotional ‘carry’. The result in the Great C major is a journey in which nothing much happens – a preliminary play-through ahead of what one imagines would be the real work of study and rehearsal.

In an earlier age conductors bided their time before committing their orchestra’s work to disc. For today’s appointees, I guess, time is not an option.