Does this Ninth differ radically in its shape, thrust and strength from either EMI’s studio recording, made six weeks previously, or Testament’s recension of the concert immediately prior to the sessions, with its additional and inspiring sense of occasion? No, however enthusiastically Colin Anderson’s booklet-note argues for a quickening here (the Adagio) and greater breadth there (the Scherzo), though the constancy in itself is both a recommendation of something trusted and treasured, and no cause to pass by, secure in the assumption that you’ve heard it all before.

The two North German choruses may show less collective discipline than their exhaustively drilled London counterparts but the Cologne orchestra’s sound, occasionally gritty and diffuse, now familiar to international listeners through recordings by Erich Kleiber and Günter Wand, rises to quite terrifying heights at the climax of the first movement, mercifully undistorted and with plenty of timbral colour preserved in the remastering. Try the cello recitative of the finale, which is done just as Beethoven instructs, in the character of a recitative but in tempo (my italics).

In case anyone persists in the tired dichotomy of Klemperer the firebrand (Kroll and Budapest Opera days) and patrician (Philharmonia years), it’s worth pointing out that at 14 minutes, this Adagio is barely a minute longer than Mackerras and the SCO (Hyperion, A/07), and no less sensitive in its regard for the interplay of the two given tempi. His security and flexibility in moving from one to another, and the disciplined liberation of the movement’s central horn solo (as well as much of the finale), puts most conductors, ancient and modern, to shame.