On the surface of it Daniel Barenboim and the César Franck Symphony in D minor seem like natural bedfellows. If there was any one French piece that I might naturally entrust to him then it would be this one. In part it’s the Wagner influence, which is so acute it’s almost embarrassing. But mostly it’s the inherent – you might say old-fashioned – grandness, and that’s something Barenboim, ever the elder statesman, takes in his stride. He also has the Berlin Philharmonic at his bidding and for organ-like sonorities that seem to come up through the bass lines they are the business.

And so the building blocks of the first movement suggest an alternative Valhalla in the making with a richly blended euphonious sound projecting the big tunes with great seriousness. The best thing about this much-loved but also much-maligned piece is the cyclic use of themes and when, for instance, the slow-movement theme returns in splendour at the close of the finale we should feel great uplift. But here’s the rub. Barenboim’s entire reading feels ‘portly’, weighed down by a certain portentousness, a determination that we should recognise just how ‘important’ this piece is. The slow movement sits well in this regard with nods to both Anton Bruckner and the Andante of Beethoven’s Seventh (Barenboim style) but the rollicking panache of the finale is nowhere and for that (and everything else) we need to turn to Monteux’s legendary Chicago Symphony performance (RCA, 10/65). Beecham and Bernstein relished it too so there is plenty of competition for comparison.

Fauré’s Pélleas et Mélisande suite is also writ larger than perhaps the music demands but the playing is predictably exquisite, especially in the Sicilienne and Mélisande’s gracious funeral procession.