When Roger Norrington first recorded this symphony in 1988, his recourse not only to instruments but also to playing techniques of Berlioz’s own time shed new light on this extraordinary work, yet without in any way diminishing its ‘Romantic’ impact.

Recording it again 16 years later, Norrington has applied the same techniques, and mostly the same interpretation, to a live performance on modern instruments. The result is therefore technically a hybrid product – one might even use the word ‘compromise’. But if there is any whiff of compromise in this performance, I missed it. The only thing I slightly regret is the supreme elegance of the violins in 1988 in the Ball Scene. To compensate, we have good, strong bassoons (Berlioz asks for four, so presumably wanted them heard), a warmer sound in some of the climaxes but without undue lushness (as Norrington observes: ‘Berlioz never heard an orchestra playing with vibrato, nor did Brahms or Mahler’), bells in the finale that are in tune (the earlier ones sound a semitone sharp to me), and a spine-chillingly spooky use of sul ponticello in the fugato section (8’03”) – not in the score, but Berlioz praised Habeneck’s similar introduction of playing ‘près du chevalet’ in the oracle scene of Gluck’s Alceste, calling it ‘incontestably appropriate’. So here. A marvellous recording in every respect, and a performance that awed the Stuttgart audience into total silence until the first ‘Bravo!’