Bernard Haitink was the first non-Soviet to direct a complete Shostakovich symphony cycle on disc and his relatively sober box-set, focusing on the dignity of the music rather than its local colour, remains in the catalogue. The Tenth has never seemed dependent on performers steeped in the Russian tradition and the only drawback of Haitink’s well played, expertly recorded studio account (1977) was its over-confident tone in the enigmatic third movement. Attempts to decode that Allegretto have gone through several phases since but it remains desirable to convey a mood of wistfulness and frustrated self-assertion.

I found no lack of subtlety in this 1986 Prom relay which also has the advantage of a true sense of euphoria at the end. The applause is earned, frenzied rather than merely respectful though rather abruptly faded. In other respects little has changed. The inexorability and stoicism of the big opening Moderato is predictably impressive and there is no hint of restraint in the Scherzo which some, Kurt Sanderling among them, have been prepared to accept as a portrait of Stalin himself.

Whatever the truth of this, Haitink’s musical priorities always deliver the goods and his admirers will welcome this unexpected reclamation from the archives of BBC Radio 3. The famously resonant acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall gives us the sound from the bottom up, with great weight in the cellos and basses. The booklet-note by Geoffrey Norris appropriately eschews speculative revisionist comment. Is the Tenth Shostakovich’s greatest single achievement? Haitink may make you think so.