Now subsumed in a big box of mainly orchestral Shostakovich, Vladimir Ashkenazy’s studio recording of the Fifth was made as long ago as 1987. The present remake, recorded live at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall in 2001, suggests that little has changed. The conductor has himself played a part in the debate surrounding Shostakovich’s reception history but on the podium he remains averse to over-egging the pudding.

Conscientiously avoiding the kind of grandiloquence associated with the late Mstislav Rostropovich, his own way with the symphony’s final bars conveys rather a kind of exhausted compliance with official diktat. As before, the first movement is deliberately cool in its initial stages; the subsequent ratcheting up of tension and pace, highly dramatic, still seems fresh. Only a few moments of swagger in the second movement sound forced. The urgent vocalisations of the maestro and some fragile ensemble confirm that this really is what it says on the tin – a one-off live relay rather than a carefully assembled patchwork quilt.

I was not entirely sold on the packaging. The booklet-notes are anonymous and the writer seems unaware that, as ever with this composer, there are two completely different accounts of the genesis of the Festive Overture, the engaging if none-too-generous makeweight. Signum Classics have opted for a rather austere series image. The sonics are close, vivid and unvarnished: the rather attenuated effect of the upper strings may or may not be authentic. This could almost be the RPO.