You wait ages for Suk’s Asrael to enter the international repertoire and then three non-Czech recordings arrive all at once. The standard seems uniformly high, though I haven’t yet managed to hear the version by Kirill Petrenko (CPO) commended by several readers. Like Vladimir Ashkenazy, Claus Peter Flor is generally lighter and lither than Rafael Kubelík in his powerful, if currently elusive, Bavarian Radio taping (Panton, 1/94).

Indeed Flor’s reading takes the process further, outpacing Václav Talich in every movement. Part of the special character of the new disc is attributable to state-of-the-art sound which, boasting a dynamic range wider even than that favoured by Ondine, could prove uncomfortable if you do your listening through earphones. Instrumental soloists are precisely located on the sound stage with first and second violins antiphonally placed. The impression of clarity, freshness and volatility also has much to do with the response of the young, multinational Malaysian Philharmonic.

Arguably the first band of truly international calibre to be based in a predominantly Muslim country, the ensemble was founded as recently as 1998. Its quality of articulation and attack is thrilling in the turbulent Scherzo, the ardour of the playing throughout akin to that of a top-class youth orchestra. The advent of a new music director, still associated in the minds of many collectors with his Bamberg Mendelssohn cycle for RCA, looks set to propel the orchestra to another level altogether. Darker sonorities and more in the way of old-world finish may follow, but what a splendid startthe team has made.