It was with Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto that Yo Yo Ma firmly established himself on the international scene and which, whatever its inconsistent response from the Philadelphia in one of Eugene Ormandy’s final sessions, affords fascinating comparison with his new version.

Timings in the initial Allegretto are similar, even if Ma’s greater trenchancy rather offsets his previous impulsiveness. The ensuing Moderato may have become a fully fledged adagio but its cumulative intensity makes for a baleful climax then desolate coda. Its rhetoric powerfully wrought, the Cadenza movement feels too deliberate in its unfolding such that the transition into the closing Allegro fails to catch the breath as it once did. Neither is the sardonic aspect of those outer movements so vividly conveyed, even though the actual playing of the Boston Symphony is superior to that from Philadelphia in 1982 as regards accuracy and definition.

Ma has not previously recorded the Second Concerto, yet its initial Adagio brings out the best in this partnership, with sombre inwardness balanced by mounting agitation, even if those bass-drum blows at its apex pack a less than visceral punch. The central Scherzo is less convincing, its fractious repartee between soloist and orchestra almost hectoring, and while the concluding Allegretto launches with an ideal mock-imperiousness, its interplay of soulful confiding with capricious humour feels too deadpan. Andris Nelsons is a first-rate accompanist, yet the detail he draws from this most ambivalent of music does not always correspond to depth of insight – witness the less than desperate climax then a coda not so much inscrutable as matter-of-fact.

Alternatives in both concertos are much more extensive than could have been envisaged four decades ago. The probing insight of Daniel Müller-Schott or the emotional volatility of Alisa Weilerstein (the Bavarian Radio Symphony responding with comparable alacrity to their very different conceptions) might not be the only way to approach either work, yet they convey an interpretative focus that Ma’s readings, whatever their technical mastery, can seem to lack. One comes away admiring these masterpieces but not newly enthused as to their greatness.