Vänskä’s Eroica comes to us primed for battle – an energetic, resilient, well drilled performance with surfaces of polished steel. The text used is the recent edition by Jonathan Del Mar, also the broad basis of David Zinman’s recording (Arte Nova, 2/99, 7/99); the playing of the Minnesota Orchestra ‘A1’ in all departments. The first movement fires off at a healthy lick, though I don’t especially care for the clipped, non-legato statement of the second subject, initially rather stiff-sounding on the woodwinds (1'41"), but even more so when the strings take over.

Turn then to Bernard Haitink’s LSO recording and the hand reaches far nearer the heart, as surely it should. This is, after all a tender, singing second subject with a touch of yearning about it, and that’s how it sounds under Haitink’s direction – under Thomas Dausgaard too, on his rather more fiery version for Simax. Come the start of the development (all three conductors play the exposition repeat) and I love the dramatic quietening on Vänskä’s version, though Haitink’s flexibility allows his woodwinds rather more room to breathe.

Haitink’s Funeral March is poised and beautifully played, more conciliatory in spirit than tragic and not especially dramatic. Vänskä’s reading is again distinguished by breathtaking dynamic extremes, such as the lunging lower strings at 9'36". Vänskä’s Eroica is austere yet smoothly executed, very much of our time in its leanness and textual fastidiousness. Haitink’s approach is softer, more malleable, less uptight, lighter on its feet than some but still engaged with what one might call the Romantic tradition. His liveliness never draws attention to itself whereas Vänskä’s does – in the blasting horns at the start of the Scherzo’s trio (2'46"), for example, and the wildly scrubbing accompaniment for the ‘Gypsy’ variation in the finale (4'05"). It’s all very exciting and the version of the Eighth Symphony that follows is similarly assertive, again with busy accompanying figurations brought usefully to the fore (try from 1'09" in the first movement). What I miss is a certain element of humour; but no one could complain that the reading lacks impact.

Haitink offers us a thoughtful and unfussy Leonore No 2, strong and well paced and, like Vänskä’s Eroica, with some telling pianissimi. LSO Live’s sound is close-set and realistic with prominent timps, whereas BIS reports a more accommodating acoustic and, as a result, a more natural balance.

As to choices, Haitink gets my vote by a whisker though I’m still eager to hear the rest of Vänskä’s cycle. His Fourth was remarkable, more so perhaps than his Fifth or this Eroica. Dausgaard’s Eroica is in my view by far the best performance so far in his Swedish cycle, confrontational, uncompromising and swift yet with an air of finesse about it. I’d be tempted to make his a modern first choice (modern in the sense of period-awareness) with Zinman not far behind. As for Haitink, period isn’t an issue: in that sense you couldn’t ‘date’ his Eroica, which is maybe one added reason for recommending it.