Santa’s sleigh may have delivered this disc a fraction too late for our December issue, but then The Nutcracker isn’t just for Christmas. Indeed, this fine performance was captured in concert at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory last January, just after the Russian Orthodox Christmas. It completes Vladimir Jurowski’s survey of Tchaikovsky’s ballets with the ‘Svetlanov’ Orchestra, which he serves as artistic director. It doesn’t hold quite the same drama as his Swan Lake (11/18) and Sleeping Beauty (ICA Classics, 12/17) accounts but is – some authentic Russian brass wobble apart – a refined reading, as highly polished as a Fabergé egg.

The State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ sounds far better disciplined than its older, more brazen days as the USSR State Symphony. There are times when I’d have welcomed a little more misbehaviour, but Jurowski is a strict master. Everything is neat as a pin in the dainty Overture and the March clips along tidily. The boys ambush girls playing with their dolls with nice impudence, though, and the battle with the Mouse King has a suitably toytown feel. The divertissement numbers of Act 2 are lightly whipped, if not exactly bursting with character, apart from some grumbling bassoons in the Chinese Dance. Jurowski then comes to life in a Waltz of the Flowers that sweeps you off your feet (even faster than Gergiev!), while the opening of the great pas de deux for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier has tremendous ardour and forward momentum. And it’s good to see Vera Almazova, the celesta player, getting a credit for her twinkly Sugar Plum Fairy pirouettes and Nina Kupriyanova for her graceful harp cadenza that launches the Waltz of the Flowers.

Comparing this new recording with others emanating from Russia in the past two decades has been instructive. Valery Gergiev is the most theatrical of the bunch, particularly in his first recording – when the Mariinsky was still trading under its Soviet Kirov title – which bustles along thrillingly in just 81 minutes (my top choice in my December 2017 Collection). Gergiev is a man of the theatre and it shows in his handling of the score’s big moments in Act 1, the magical transformation of the Christmas tree and the pine forest in winter. Former Bolshoi music director Alexander Vedernikov (now at St Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theatre) is often quite dull in comparison, although the Bolshoi brass can be both bracing and bruising – you can understand why Pentatone wanted a new Nutcracker in its catalogue. Jurowski is closer in spirit and refinement to Mikhail Pletnev, whose Russian National Orchestra may be on best behaviour in the two big waltzes but elsewhere exude joy. Gergiev would still be my top choice; but those who’ve enjoyed Jurowski’s Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty will want this new recording. Perhaps Jurowski can be persuaded to set down the score to John Cranko’s ballet version of Onegin too?