Perhaps surprisingly for a conductor so steeped in the operatic repertoire, the more abstract world of Schumann’s symphonies seems a natural fit for Antonio Pappano. These live performances raise hopes for a companion volume pairing the more picturesque ‘named’ symphonies, the Spring and the Rhenish.

Pappano’s obvious rapport with his Rome-based orchestra pays dividends in music that still bears the stigma of older, heavier performing styles. String attack is bouncy and woodwinds make some lovely sounds, even if they might have been brought ever so slightly forwards in the sound picture. Pappano acknowledges the importance of the brass instruments, too, in adding sheen and heft to Schumann’s orchestral textures.

He is no speed merchant in the faster music: the Lebhaft of the Fourth’s opening movement (in the more common revised version of 1851) is taken at less of a lick than on some other recordings and emerges as less storm-wracked, more windswept in its interplay of light and dark. In the Second, his approach to the pervasive rhythm of the first movement’s Allegro allows the repeated figure to remain insistent without becoming obsessive. Nevertheless, the Schneller and Presto coda of the Fourth’s finale set off like a greyhound out of the traps to truly exciting effect.

The Parco della Musica audience duly respond with great enthusiasm (at the end of both symphonies); elsewhere they are silent except between movements. The only possibly distracting extraneous noise is a degree of huffing and puffing from the podium. These readings are a far cry from the revisionist outlook that has gripped certain conductors over recent years (Gardiner and Dausgaard among them) but they are affectionate performances and deserve a listen.