The swiftly pulsing violas and cellos that open Riccardo Chailly’s Gewandhaus Orchestra account of the First Serenade contradict what many past interpreters have presented as genial and easy-going. OK, look at the marking: Allegro molto. There’s your answer. But does it feel right? To be truthful, at first I had my doubts. But, the more I returned to the performance, the more Chailly’s method struck me as effective, just as Boult (Warner Classics) had done before him: in fact Sir Adrian’s tempo for the first movement is slower than Chailly’s by a mere 30 seconds. Both conductors observe the important exposition repeat. The main stumbling block, at least initially, was the espressivo second theme (1'37"), music that is just aching to be loved but that at Chailly’s nifty tempo seems impatient. But, as Klemperer once said to Walter Legge regarding his slow tempo for the Pastoral Symphony’s ‘Peasant’s Merrymaking’, ‘you’ll get used to it’.

Maybe not quite the same in the case of the mellower Second Serenade (the one without violins), with its Allegro moderato first movement, where Boult’s tempo is broader than Chailly’s by almost two minutes and even Toscanini, in a sonically compromised but supremely lyrical NBC broadcast from 1942 (RCA), eases for an extra 1'20". That’s where I think some might take issue, though in the context of an interesting booklet interview Chailly stresses the importance of Brahms’s classical antecedents, hence the justification for brighter textures and swifter speeds. Point taken. Among the joys to behold elsewhere are the rollicking finales of both works, the Second Serenade’s Rondo like an unacknowledged Hungarian Dance, where Chailly fractionally eases the pulse for the lovely oboe-led second subject. And the Menuettos I and II from the First Serenade, utterly entrancing, the second Menuetto a dead ringer for one of Brahms’s Lieder, especially as played by the Gewandhaus strings.

As to rival versions: in the First Serenade, Abbado and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (DG), and Stokowski with the Symphony of the Air (originally MCA Classics) are supremely stylish; and for the two Serenades together, I’d say István Kertész and the LSO (Decca), all bright and bushy-tailed, Dirk Joeres with the warm-textured Westdeutsche Sinfonia and Bernard Haitink with the RCO on especially glorious form (Philips), though neither Joeres nor Haitink play the First Serenade’s important first-movement repeat. Chailly’s superbly engineered coupling amounts to an essential refresher course, vital and instructive listening, though whether it’ll alter your convictions remains to be seen and heard. It certainly did mine.