The prime purpose of this box-set is undoubtedly to document Andris Nelsons’s accounts of Tchaikovsky’s last three (numbered) symphonies taped during his first two seasons as Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Rather than cut and splice the symphonies across a couple of DVDs (or a single Blu ray), Accentus has opted to serve up the three entire concerts from which they formed the concluding part of the programme – an expensive way to acquire the Tchaikovsky but it does offer rewards in terms of the other repertoire on offer. Curiously, all three concerts have been released on DVD/Blu ray by Accentus within the past couple of years.

The performances are a wonderful showcase for the refined sound of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Strings are unfailingly rich and burnished, brass have a full-bodied tone and woodwinds often distinguish themselves, particularly some velvety clarinet-playing in the Fifth. There was clearly no patching – the piccolo may have wished for another shot at one particular phrase in the Fourth’s Scherzo – but on the whole these are highly polished accounts.

And that’s part of the problem. Apart from a particularly strong sledgehammer-blow of Fate to open the Fourth, Nelsons seems more interested in honing a beautiful sound over digging beneath the scores’ depths. Using his baton held by its very tip to tease phrases, it often feels as if Nelsons is over-caressing the music, gleaming marble rather than the rough-hewn granite one encounters in Valery Gergiev’s Mariinsky recordings, filmed in the Salle Pleyel, Paris, in 2010.

There are wonderful things here: nimble pizzicato in the Fourth; the lovingly played horn solo in the slow movement of the Fifth; the military precision, and even a touch of swagger, in the Pathétique’s March. But were these interpretations that moved me or excited me? Not really. Gergiev – slower than Nelsons in almost every movement – still does it for me, superbly played, but there’s that slight coarseness of sound, that ‘Russianness’ that crackles. But if you like your Tchaikovsky more classically poised rather than heart-on-sleeve, then these are interpretations worth investigating. The same concert as the Pathétique features Mozart’s Symphony No 40 in G minor, perhaps an appropriate pairing given Tchaikovsky’s reverence for the composer. It’s old-fashioned Mozart – nothing wrong with that – but nothing to set pulses racing.

It’s the two concertos that really make this set attractive. Baiba Skride is outstanding in Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No 1, introspective in the Nocturne and Passacaglia, while the Scherzo has plenty of bite, a reminder that Nelsons is a very fine Shostakovich conductor. Håkan Hardenberger is the excellent soloist in Weinberg’s Trumpet Concerto, a work deserving a wider reputation. Hardenberger engages in plenty of cheeky banter with the orchestra in the opening movement, the central Andante features smoky muted playing and the finale, entitled ‘Fanfares’, becomes a game of musical I spy, featuring quotes from Mahler, Mendelssohn, Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky.