Vladimir Ashkenazy’s indefatigable enthusiasm for making music has latterly embraced unexpected corners of the repertoire and collaborations with orchestras and record companies off the beaten track. While the results have not always boasted the technical finish, top-notch presentation and worldwide distribution associated with his Decca projects, Ashkenazy’s work for the Ondine label has been pretty much state-of-the art. Helsinki’s Finlandia Hall may look better than it sounds but its acoustic presents no problems to this production team.

Long promoted by a single mono recording under Václav Talich (Supraphon, 11/06), Suk’s Asrael Symphony has been turning up more regularly in concert recently. Something of a one-off, dedicated “to the noble memory of Dvorák and Otylka” (Suk’s inspirational father-in-law and tragically short-lived wife), it once seemed too gloomy, too prone to heightened chromaticism for mainstream acceptance. Newcomers should expect an utterance emotive in content and radical in structure, closer to Mahler than Dvorák, though it is not Ashkenazy’s way to wallow in its tragedies with inflated rubato or over-egged climaxes.

Small wonder that Evgeni Svetlanov was among its champions given the parallels with the glowering symphonic behemoths of early Myaskovsky. As Rafael Kubelík’s uniquely powerful (and idiomatic) Bavarian Radio tape (Panton, 1/94) is currently elusive, there’s certainly room for Ashkenazy’s marginally fleeter, cleaner, texturally airier conception. He holds together the sometimes disjunct finale with skill, avoiding any hint of lassitude or bombast; the understated optimism and luminosity of the coda I found most moving.

This hybrid SACD, a live recording from which applause has been excised, comes with helpful booklet-notes by Jan Smaczny. It is, I believe, and readers may correct me, only the second time the work has been tackled on disc by a wholly non-Czech team. Recommended.