‘Johannes Brahms 1874-1951’ reads the back cover, suggesting a sloppiness that, happily, is not reflected either in the cultured response Jukka-Pekka Saraste draws from his Cologne charges or the excellence of the recorded sound. At the same time, there’s precious little in the Finn’s disappointingly earthbound conception of the First Symphony to set the pulse racing or stoke the imagination. In an attempt to find out what was missing, I dug out a rival live offering on the same label featuring the great Günter Wand at the helm of the Munich PO from February 1997. To be frank, this operates at an entirely different level of electric tension (the sense of embarking on a genuinely nourishing voyage of discovery is palpable from the very first bar) and interpretative insight, evincing a selfless wisdom, trenchant authority and wonderfully unforced musicality that Saraste and his WDR forces barely hint at.

It’s a similar tale in the Third, an obstinately anodyne, safety-first display, lacking something in sheer personality and temperament, and which pales next to the likes of Furtwängler (EMI, a positively volcanic account from 1949 with the BPO), Boult (ICA, 8/12) or Tennstedt (LPO, 2/13) – to name but three concert performances I’ve found durably rewarding – let alone a veritable host of classic studio versions from Cantelli (EMI), Kempe (Testament), Walter (Sony), Klemperer, (EMI), Szell (Sony), Haitink (Philips, with the RCO) Sanderling (RCA) and Abbado (DG, with the BPO). Set beside such august company, this perplexingly bland newcomer is, it grieves me to say, comprehensively outclassed.