Tennstedt’s recorded legacy is not an extensive one. He held no pre-eminent position, and no state recording contract, in Communist East Germany from which he decamped to Sweden in 1971 at the age of 45. Establishing himself in the West also took time. (I vividly recall the arrival of his LPO recording of Mahler’s First Symphony in 1978; giving a rave review to a performance by a conductor of whom one has never heard is always unnerving.)

This Bruckner Third was made two years earlier. On paper, it looks plausible. The Bavarian RSO had made a number of distinguished Bruckner recordings under Eugen Jochum – including the Third, recorded in January 1967 – and this was Tennstedt repertory, too, for all his reluctance to specialise. In the event, it is a performance best forgotten. Tennstedt conducts the problematic 1889 revision with energy but no real guile; the playing suggests a one-off studio performance with a little-known conductor based on insufficient rehearsal; the recording is bright but shallow, garish in the tuttis. By Bavarian Radio standards, it is also poorly focused – a further sign, perhaps, of inadequate preparation.

The BBC did a rather better job for Barbirolli and the Hallé in Manchester. As for the rival Wand and Böhm versions, they are in a different league musically and technically. At full-price, and with a playing time of 52 minutes, this is a poorly judged release.