Here’s further proof that Pietari Inkinen is a young conductor with confidence and talent to spare. As on this partnership’s previous Sibelius anthology (3/08) the New Zealand SO respond with conspicuous poise and application for their Finnish chief (they really do sound like a rejuvenated band). Inkinen’s readings, too, show a real feeling for the idiom: phrases are shaped – and textures sifted – with fastidiousness and imagination, and he brings an abundant recreative flair and cogent grip to the task in hand, not least in Night Ride and Sunrise, whose elusive structure he binds together with a sure-footed skill that belies his tender years. Moreover, Inkinen’s luminous account of the suite from Belshazzar’s Feast will have you questioning why such an appealing and highly evocative score is so seldom performed (both middle movements possess a truly spine-tingling hush).

Elsewhere, rarities such as Pan and Echo and The Dryad emerge with a dewy freshness and ear-pricking sophistication that prompt a radical reappraisal. Inkinen even manages to breathe new life into the Op 44 diptych from the 1903 incidental music for Kuolema (the ubiquitous “Valse triste” and bleakly beautiful “Scene with Cranes”), and his alchemy extends to the two altogether more mundane numbers that Sibelius added for a 1911 revival of the play (the feeble “Valse romantique” sounds more beguiling than I would have ever thought possible).

A disc, then, guaranteed to give pretty much unbridled pleasure. Naxos’s sound combines helpful transparency with plenty of ambient glow, and I for one would welcome more off-the-beaten-track Sibelius from the NZSO/Inkinen team.