Completed just as his friend Wagner was starting rehearsals for the first Ring in Bayreuth, Svendsen’s Second Symphony is a step forwards from his 1865 first essay in the genre. A similar lightness and wit – and a recognisable base in Norwegian dance material (especially, of course, the scherzo’s imitation Halling) – is now counterpointed by a use of longer-ranging melodies. And the formal structure, like that of the Cello Concerto here, now owes more to Liszt’s symphonic poems than Mendelssohnian manoeuvres acquired in Leipzig. The first movement is also most aware (shall we say) of the melody and shape of the opening exposition of Schumann’s Rhenish. Järvi, perhaps influenced by his recent Wagner excursions on disc, gives the symphony an appropriately darker, more dramatic colour than rivals including Jansons, Engeset or Dausgaard. I haven’t heard Järvi’s own previous Gothenburg recording (BIS, 11/87).

The Cello Concerto (1870) stands on that interesting cusp between Romantic and earlier-20th-century concerto forms, with Truls Mørk (beautifully recorded) as mixture of soloist and primus inter pares. The anarchic manner in which musical utterance dominates form is reminiscent of later Czech composers like Janáček and Martinů. A fascinating and addictive work that deserves more airings.

In comparison with the above works, the Rhapsodies are more bread-and-butter. Nationalist business-as-usual compositions, they follow in the steps of the Liszt Rhapsodies that Svendsen had recently orchestrated and rather lack the charm of similar Grieg excursions. But Järvi and his Norwegians are on scintillating form throughout and the Cello Concerto and dark reading of the Symphony are to be treasured.