In December 2014 Daniel Harding stepped in to conduct this very work with the Berlin Philharmonic, a high-profile engagement in which he replaced an indisposed Kirill Petrenko. The present disc draws upon Harding’s earlier Munich concerts and may surprise those familiar with the conductor’s extrovert body language or his bullish way with Beethoven, evident even in his Award-winning partnership with the fastidious Maria João Pires (Onyx, 10/14).

The most provocative aspect of BR Klassik’s production is its cover art, the result of an experiment in which select musicians were fitted with electrocardiographic devices to monitor their heart rates in performance. ‘The results,’ we are assured, ‘reveal that Daniel Harding, in particular, performed at peak capacity.’ Be that as it may, this expertly prepared reading sounds like the work of a rather older man. Even its remarkable textural clarity is downplayed by the easy-going recording. The model is almost certainly Claudio Abbado, who had the rare gift of avoiding egotism without becoming faceless. Harding’s disavowal of the music’s neurotic impulses and careful rationing of rubato may be welcomed by some listeners but can make the symphony somewhat pallid. The one significant point of contact with Riccardo Chailly’s energised, self-consciously radical Leipzig rethink (Accentus, 3/14) is the decision to place the Andante moderato before the Scherzo.

There is much beautiful playing from the Bavarians, in the slow movement above all, assuming that you can accept an interpretation trading heartbreaking melancholy and human warmth for a kind of frozen poise. It’s as if Mahler’s Alpine meadows were being given a fresh dusting of snow. In the finale Harding follows Leonard Bernstein’s intuition (or more likely the letter of the latest critical edition of the score) in italicising the nightmarish outbursts of horns and trumpets in the slow introduction but he never reaches fever pitch thereafter. His relatively deliberate, anti-rhetorical treatment certainly avoids the usual heaviness, and should the movement’s broader shape matter more to you than moment-by-moment theatricality this might yet be the Mahler Sixth of your dreams. Applause is expunged and its 82'28" has been squeezed on to a single CD.