The nickname “Flash Harry” may have stuck but there’s absolutely nothing showy about Sargent’s 1963 Proms account of Vaughan Williams’s bracing Fourth Symphony. Indeed, it’s the discriminating musicality of Sir Malcolm’s impressively clear-sighted conception that impresses most. The slow movement in particular has humanity and compassion to spare (and the truly cantabile tone Sargent elicits from the BBC SO strings is an object lesson throughout). Some may deem the comparative lack of edge and angst a drawback – the Scherzo wears a jaunty grin, its gallumphing mischief strongly reminiscent of “Uranus” from The Planets, always a Sargent speciality – but the finale generates an exciting, fluster-free momentum (how good to hear so much of the strings’ muscular passagework) which for once carries through to the grinding fugal epilogue, where Sargent profitably pays heed to VW’s con anima marking.

The Sibelius, captured at a Prom two seasons later, has many comparable virtues. Sargent was a devoted Sibelian (he recorded three of the symphonies and a number of tone-poems for EMI) and his cannily paced, shrewdly observant reading of the Fourth displays a big-hearted honesty that outweighs any minor imperfections or audience distractions along the journey. If Sargent’s rewardingly unforced approach makes the Fourth a less forbidding creature than we are used to nowadays, there’s no disputing the thoughtful preparation and nourishing wisdom of the finished article. Admirable, tweak-free transfers (Paul Baily) and knowledgeable annotation (Colin Anderson) bolster the appeal of an instructive pairing.