Knut Nystedt’s apocalyptic symphony, Op 155 in his catalogue, was written in response to an 85th birthday commission in 2000. The first three movements are for orchestra alone, the last for soloists, choir and orchestra, and, at nearly an hour, could be described as an oratorio in its own right. Nystedt’s compositional language, powerful though it is, is quite difficult to describe. It has a Romantic breadth but is clearly informed by the modernism that the composer absorbed in the 1960s. It is lyrical but one comes away with memories of masses of sound and changing textures rather than melodies running through one’s head.

This kind of writing is ideal for the brooding, monumental atmosphere of the first movement, whose tone (as opposed to specific musical gestures) rather suggests Shostakovich. The second, whose text motto is the section of the Book of Revelations describing the appearance of the Ark of the Covenant, amid ‘flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a great hailstorm’, is also monumental, but in quite a different way, a kind of nightmarish scherzo, with particularly effective deployment of wind, brass and percussion. The third movement is mysterious and meditative, an appropriate curtain-raiser, as it were, for the fourth, the dramatic ‘Jerusalem, Hymnus’.

Nystedt favours a broadly pictorial approach, responding eagerly to the imagery of the text and employing periodically some of the most angular writing of the entire score, as well as choral speaking (shouting!), suggestions of organum and a huge array of orchestral colours. The performance is magnificent (James Gilchrist and Mona Julsrud are particularly impressive, taking Nystedt’s demanding writing in their stride), and beautifully recorded.