With over 80 minutes of music and demonstration sound to boot, Shostakovich’s first three symphonies make for a compelling disc. The Japanese branch of BMG also managed to get Kondrashin’s classic Moscow Philharmonic accounts on to a single CD but they were nearly five minutes shorter and, despite good remastering, in much coarser recording quality.

The main difference in timing comes with the Second Symphony, where Mark Wigglesworth takes his time especially over the sepulchral opening pages, which really do emerge from silence, as though from early-morning Russian mists. Turn the sound up to room-comfort point and the climaxes become deafening; but listen a little above normal playback level and the sound picture is fabulously well defined. There’s just one place where the effect might be queried: the timpani’s fateful summonses in the finale of the First Symphony are so stentorian that the undamped middle note rings on, making the last one seem vaguely out of tune when it actually isn’t.

To highlight the recording quality isn’t to disparage the interpretations or performances. Wigglesworth coaxes a wealth of detail out of his players, and they respond with gusto and agility. Those details are persuasive on the level of characterisation too, and the overall pacing is also well judged. Among many highlights are the lusty singing of the Netherlands Radio Choir – a more plausible impersonation of revolution-inspired workers than any I can recall from a Western chorus – and the sirens in No 2 (rather than Shostakovich’s more commonly heard substitute version for brass). Perhaps there is just a whiff of compromise in the finale of No 1, which could be more helter-skelter, and similarly in the most exposed places of No 3 (though the latter are almost bound to be a little wary, since no orchestra these days is likely to play the piece regularly enough to get it completely under control). Given that the Kondrashin is well-nigh impossible to purchase at the moment, and that the new disc comes with texts, translations and a well-targeted essay by the conductor himself, anyone drawn to this coupling should not hesitate to invest.