Sir Mark Elder’s studio recording of the First Symphony arrives hard on the heels of Sir Colin Davis’s concert version (LSO Live, 1/09). That London performance was unashamedly traditional, unafraid to slam on the brakes in the interests of heightened expressivity. The Manchester reading is more thoughtful and possibly more carefully prepared. The rhetorical thrust Sibelius inherited from the music of Tchaikovsky is downplayed so as to expose those compositional details which make the invention inescapably Sibelian. Throughout Elder looks for significant detail, heightening string sawings more often viewed as accompanimental and even reintroducing touches of portamento redolent of the Barbirolli era. He seems fascinated by the way Sibelius can make his music appear to move at different speeds at different levels of an orchestral texture. What’s missing is the adrenalin rush of a speed merchant like Anthony Collins (Beulah, 8/52R) or the über-Romantic throb of Leonard Bernstein (DG, 4/92R).

With the Third Symphony (taped live) Elder is on firmer ground. Sibelius seems to have intended to give the music a self-consciously cool attitude anticipating that defined in 1920 by his friend Ferrucio Busoni as Junge Klassizität or the “New Classicality”. Its freshness has a studied air but who’s to say it shouldn’t have? The overall pacing is spacious with the finale fusing its various sections into a convincing proto-minimalist chug.

The back inlay quotes the claim by an unnamed Guardian critic (actually Tim Ashley) that the Hallé sound captures the composer’s “quintessential mix of frost and fire better than any other UK orchestra”. That may be pushing it. Still this is a thought-provoking pairing, finely recorded.