Captured in satisfyingly full-blooded ‘enhanced mono’ sound (with just an occasional patch of pre- and post-echo), both symphonies receive top-class advocacy. Solti’s Mozart combines grace, tender affection and urbanity to most agreeable effect – annotator Humphrey Burton (who directed the original BBC broadcast) is surely right to remind us of the maestro’s deep-rooted love and respect for the composer. As for the Tchaikovsky, Solti’s imperious reading pretty much has it all: long-term rigour, intensity, temperament, pathos, wit and drama. Listen out for the memorably songful tone Solti draws from the ever-pliable CSO strings in the slow movement, and how much balletic point and twinkling fun he locates in the ensuing Pizzicato ostinato. I need hardly stress that the finale attains the highest degree of excitement without ever degenerating into flashy theatricals – the power and precision of the brass section in particular will blow you away.

Above all, though, these consistently alive and involving performances serve to remind one afresh of the cherishable pedigree and long-standing tradition of this remarkable orchestra. What an enviably secure and commandingly articulate group of musicians, and what an extraordinary array of collective and individual talent inhabited their ranks! Among the legendary principals on view are the late, incomparable Bud Herseth (trumpet), Jay Friedman (trombone), Dale Clevenger (horn), Donald Peck (flute), Ray Still (oboe), Larry Combs (clarinet), Willard Elliot (bassoon), Milton Preves (viola, who joined in 1934) and Victor Aitay (concertmaster – like Solti, a graduate of Budapest’s Liszt Academy, and a CSO member from 1954 to 2003).

As a bonus, we get the encore item from that same February evening, a beguilingly lithe, free-spirited account of ‘Fêtes’ from Debussy’s Nocturnes – though strangely enough, the sound quality is not quite so palatable here. Don’t let that minor caveat, however, put you off investigating this hugely enjoyable DVD for yourselves.