Beethoven wrote the incidental music to Egmont while in the process of transforming Leonore (1805 06) into Fidelio (1814) and you can feel his understanding of music theatre on the move in every bar of Aapo Häkkinen’s reading of the Overture. Here in the starkest unison is the grave situation facing the Dutch nobleman Egmont, here are the Spanish occupying forces. There he stands in reply, alongside his people, captured in just a bar or two of plaintive heterophony from solo winds.

These gestures are not isolated from each other by Häkkinen but they find their place in a symphonic drama originally voiced at every turn, building to an execution scene as plain as day. This is followed by a well-earned silence (even evoking memories of Furtwängler live in Berlin in 1947), and a rarely observed second cadence point. Without whipping up the coda with a contrived accelerando he allows a slight and natural quickening of pace and then lets the reprise off the leash in the concluding ‘Victory Symphony’.

I have concentrated on the Overture because – let’s face it – we all do. Once Beethoven’s music had become more in demand than Goethe’s words, Friedrich Mosengeil devised a poetic précis which is declaimed in full and invaluably printed likewise, with translation, in the booklet. The Swiss actor Robert Hunger-Bühler falls well on the ear, respecting the metre, declaiming with passion in the context of a live performance, yet without venturing to the melodramatic extremes of John Malkovich on a recent period-instrument production (Alpha, 9/16) uniquely offering both English and German versions of the narrative.

On the Alpha set, the Wiener Akademie is directed by Martin Haselböck, whose Beethoven is as dry as a bottle of Trocken and likewise best enjoyed in situ. The Helsinki set enjoys livelier characterisation and a much richer instrumental palette – Eduard Wesly’s oboe deserves special praise, but so does the four-strong horn section, and Häkkinen’s own discreet fortepiano continuo – and Elisabeth Breuer’s soprano is tonally matched to them in the two numbers designed by Beethoven for a singing actress. Presently unavailable outside a huge Decca box, George Szell’s VPO recording (10/70) deserves its reputation, and Häkkinen presents a worthy modern counterpart.