The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (now honoured as the the National Orchestra of Sweden), under their longtime music director Neeme Järvi, give an outstanding performance of the Little Russian Symphony, beautifully played and paced and immaculately recorded, though in comparison with my favourite, from Mariss Jansons and the Oslo Philharmonic (Chandos, 11/87), it lacks a little on felicitous detail, with phrasing and rhythm not quite so individually pointed.

Järvi’s flowing tempo for the long opening Andante is reassuring – it can easily outlast its welcome – and his free expressiveness is most persuasive, the crisp attack of the Allegro, with its Ukrainian themes, bringing echoes of Tchaikovsky’s ballet music. Though the Andantino marziale, in place of a slow movement, is on the brisk side, the rhythmic lift again is most persuasive. The Scherzo is fresh and light and the opening of the finale has ample weight to contrast with the lightness of the second subject, its cross-rhythms suggesting Cuban rhythms. The way Järvi presses forward as the climaxes build adds to the excitement.

The overture inspired by Ostrovsky’s play The Storm (also the source of Janácek’s Kát’a Kabanová) is by far the most inspired of the three and is given a powerful performance. The Overture in F is a student work whose deft orchestration points to the mature Tchaikovsky while the one on the Danish national anthem suffers from its relatively uninteresting theme. It’s not nearly as striking as the Russian national anthem, with which it is entwined – rather as the Marseillaise is in the 1812. Tchaikovsky thought it a much more successful piece though it is hard to justify the pompous final repeat of the Danish theme, fortissimo, even in a performance as well judged as Järvi’s.