The penultimate instalment in this absorbing series launches with what is only the second-ever complete recording of the original score that Sibelius provided for the hugely successful April 1908 premiere (at Helsinki’s Swedish Theatre) of August Strindberg’s fairy-tale play Svanevit (‘Swanwhite’). Lasting nearly half an hour and comprising 14 numbers, it may make for a less satisfying sequence than the seven-movement suite that Sibelius devised for the concert hall, but still boasts much that is wholly characteristic and rewarding. Listen out for some intriguing sidelong glances to the slow movements of the Third and Fifth symphonies – and do I hear a teasing echo of Valse triste during ‘The harp falls briefly silent’ (tr 7)?

Don’t be hoodwinked by the early opus number appended to the incidental music for Mikael Lybeck’s drama, Ödlan (‘The Lizard’); it actually dates from 1909-10 – and a fascinating discovery it proves, too. Luminously scored for string orchestra, it’s a 25-minute canvas in two parts containing much duskily beautiful and splendidly atmospheric invention, not to mention some fascinating harmonic and textural foreshadowings of Tapiola. Bringing up the rear are two brief melodramas in Swedish, both sensitively narrated by Riho Eklundh. A Lonely Ski Trail (to a text by Bertel Gripenberg) was composed in 1925 but not heard until December 1948. It’s a haunting miniature (the final measures are sheer magic) and leaves a rather more enduring impression than does The Countess’s Portrait (a 1905 setting of Zachris Topelius).

Suffice to report, Leif Segerstam directs all this material with unhurried authority, abundant perception and heaps of character. Likewise, his willing Turku colleagues are with him every step of the way. Admirable production values and useful notes, too. A job well done.