A cultivated rather than hell-for-leather Tchaikovsky Fifth was the first audio-only recording project of Andris Nelsons’s CBSO years (Orfeo, 10/09). Bearded now and a little stouter, like so many of us, the Latvian conductor directs ensembles with a higher international profile these days. Interpretatively speaking little has changed. This Fifth might even be caricatured as vaguely retro: it features agogic touches that go beyond the discreet tricks inherited from the late Mariss Jansons (qv restraining dynamic levels at the start of a phrase so as to leave room for expansion). The Leipzig team works hard to invigorate old-school expressive intentions with precise, sometimes glorious playing. Both first and second movements get under way in unequivocally Stygian gloom, slower than might have been expected from this generally extrovert maestro. Which is to take nothing away from the Andante cantabile’s lovely horn solo or the way the clarinets introduce the work with a haunted, flattish Russian sound. As miked, the brass are inclined to reticence, eschewing any hint of Soviet-style blasting.

The concerto may be just as much of a draw. Baiba Skride is a frequent Nelsons collaborator whose Berg featured in the 2018 engagements that launched the conductor’s tenure as local Kapellmeister (Accentus, 11/18). Last year’s Shostakovich is of a similar standard though it’s only fair to point out that the competition includes their own Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall relay of October 2015 and earlier, audio-only accounts made with other partners. Then again, while Nelsons’s Bavarian Radio forces provided exceptionally engaged support for Arabella Steinbacher in 2006 (Orfeo), Skride was assigned Mikko Franck’s less stellar Munich Philharmonic (Sony, 8/06). Nelsons is a superb accompanist whose tactfully understated Leipzig backdrop still allows individual players to step up as the invention demands. The Nocturne, patiently paced, is by no means exclusively grey, its low tam-tam strokes blessedly audible. Skride captures a real sense of unease without wearing her heart on her sleeve. In the Scherzo by contrast she contrives a disruptive sprint into the ‘Jewish’ folk element. The Passacaglia is different again, too clean and linear to be stymied as merely somnambulistic. After the finale’s dash to the finishing line the audience is granted an unshowy encore, Stravinsky’s literally muted wartime Élégie.

Some might prefer tauter, more objective renditions but admirers of these artists need not hesitate. The visual framing of the concert is unexceptionable, the Communist-era hall a known quantity, acoustically sound. A handsome booklet contains nothing on the star performers, focusing instead on the music and its Leipzig connections.