The performance of the Bruckner took place in London in March 1964, three months before the death of the LSO’s revered chief conductor, Pierre Monteux. The well-nigh symbiotic relationship between orchestra and conductor that is evident on every page of this Bruckner Fourth is a pointer to why the LSO later chose the 35-year-old Kertész as its new principal conductor.

As we now know, it was a relationship doomed to failure. The agreeable young musician who, in oboist Roger Lord’s phrase, had brought “a lovely singing quality to the orchestra” in late-Romantic repertory soon became brusque and demanding. There are hints of this in the rather more prescriptive 1965 studio recording of the Bruckner which Kertész made for Decca at the outset of his ill-fated three-year rule.

What we have here is Monteux’s clear-sighted yet mellow-sounding LSO led by a superbly gifted young musician at his relaxed and decisive best. “Wonderful sense of rhythm, great sense of line and phrasing, but incredibly immature as a person” was one player’s retrospective on Kertész. Here happily it is the musical qualities that count.

Kertész’s role model for the Fourth Symphony was Bruno Walter who, like Klemperer, played this most vital yet at the same time lyrical of Bruckner symphonies with a judicious mixture of pace and relaxation. The playing is superb, as is the recording which, this being the Royal Festival Hall, I can only ascribe to a vintage blend of fine playing, astute conducting and alpha-quality old-school BBC engineering.

The microphones are set further back for the Vaughan Williams, giving bloom and perspective to a performance of some grandeur and eloquence. Happily, there is time to exit before the applause which BBC Legends insists on preserving but which in the privacy of one’s own room ruins the sense of completion and quiet at the music’s end.