We know more about Tchaikovsky’s turbulent emotions from his Fourth Symphony than from any other of his works because he wrote about the music in some detail to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck. The first movement’s opening and dominating fate motive he described as ‘that inescapable force which checks our aspirations towards happiness, like a sword of Damocles’. And the following languishing theme with a limping rhythm so well expresses his resigned anguish at reconciling himself to ‘invincible destiny’.

Daniele Gatti knows what this music is all about but, as in his memorable version of the Fifth Symphony (Harmonia Mundi, 4/04), he often favours tempi which move the music on faster than usual. He ignores the moderato instruction and presses forward, underlining the music’s agitation. It’s a convincing interpretative alternative but it does mean there is less contrast than usual when the delightful balletic secondary tune arrives, offering ‘a sweet and blissful daydream’.

Gergiev in his outstanding version captures the composer’s intentions more truly, yet Gatti’s powerful momentum is compulsive and he finds his contrast in the blissful rocking string melody so beautifully played by the RPO strings. His quickening in building the movement’s climaxes is gripping and the coda is splendid.

The nostalgic second movement is beautifully played, the wistful oboe melody is taken a little faster than usual, but here the contrast of the vigorous middle section (Tchaikovsky remembering ‘satisfying youth, when the young blood boiled’) erupts effectively, and the decorated reprise shows the RPO woodwinds at their most sensitive.

The finale bursts in with great force. Tchaikovsky (who knew well the pleasures of vodka) uses a Russian folksong to illustrate uninhibited Russian peasants, and after the dramatic re-entry of the ‘fate’ fanfare brings a moment of doubt, Gatti carries forward to a spectacular coda. His Capriccio italien is robustly enjoyable, too.

Good if not expansive sound; but the live SACD Gergiev/Musikverein account is even more engulfing.