There are good things here and Altus has achieved a decent match between two separate acoustics: the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre for The Rite of Spring and Suntory Hall for The Miraculous Mandarin. Note how the bass clarinet presents itself in The Rite’s introduction, and the clarity of the gathering woodwind minions later on. Come ‘The Augurs of Spring’ and the approach shifts to proficient autopilot, or seems to, although as before textures are extremely uncluttered. Big drums in ‘The Ritual of Abduction’ have impact, the ‘Procession of the Sage’ builds well and the ‘Dance of the Earth’ is especially exciting. What the First Part lacks is the sort of animal drive that characterises Peter Eötvös (Junge Deutsche Philharmonie), Igor Markevitch (stereo Philharmonia recording) and Antál Dorati (stereo Minneapolis recording). The woodwinds again excel at the start of ‘The Sacrifice’, though I’d have liked rather more in the way of tonal substance from the strings. There’s good pacing and some effectively held clarinet tone in the ‘Evocation of the Ancestors’, while the closing ‘Sacrificial Dance’ is taut and propulsive.

The Miraculous Mandarin’s opening cityscape lacks menace (there’s no organ), the ‘Decoy Games’, although well played, aren’t insinuating enough and the final chase keeps the adrenaline flow at a fairly low ebb. It’s a good performance, with some oily glissandos where needed and, like The Rite, enjoys textural transparency. But although there are moments where the tension mounts (the Mandarin’s first appearance, for example), much of the performance lacks the right sort of intensity. Anaemic would perhaps be too harsh a judgement but it at least gives you a clue as to where I’m coming from. Sylvain Cambreling is an intelligent conductor who has the music securely in his grasp and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra is a well-groomed ensemble but both works cry out for extra drive, character and, in the case of the Bartók, the sort of deep-vein involvement you get from Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra in the complete ‘pantomime’ or from Dorati and the Chicago Symphony in the Suite (mono – but a real performance). This coupling is enjoyable but no more than that.