Like many hugely gifted executant musicians of the 1960s, Walter Weller has enjoyed a longer career on the podium. His discography as conductor is large and varied – his Decca Prokofiev symphony cycle recently returned to the lists courtesy of Brilliant Classics – and he is currently recording again with the Belgian orchestra of which he has been music director since 2007. Arriving at any other time this latest disc would have been assured a warm welcome but competition is fierce indeed in this repertoire. Although Fuga Libera’s relatively forward, unglamorised sound balance is perfectly acceptable, there’s more clarity, depth and dynamic range in the recent versions of the main work from Claus Peter Flor and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Suk’s mysterious opening is indicative. Some give the music maximum space and gravitas; Weller seems concerned to incorporate it into the larger whole with emotions kept in check. Elsewhere, at speeds intended to sweep us off our feet, the phrasing can begin to feel rather snatched at.

The strings lack weight. Or is it that the winds are over-miked? Interpretatively speaking at least Václav Talich, working in the difficult political circumstances of the early 1950s, has unique authority and an emotive force which transcends sonic considerations.

Where Weller does trump his rivals is in his provision of a rare coupling, previously available in a Supraphon Suk compilation under Petr Altrichter. The Legend of the Dead Victors (1920) commemorates those Czech legions who died in defence of their homeland on the battlefields of Europe. A strangely meandering seven-minute piece, its searing, declamatory launch subsides into more routine military march manoeuvres like some mid-century Anglo-American film score. There’s another of Suk’s paradisiacal postscripts, however, which for some readers will be recommendation enough.