Which lands me in a critical quandary. It doesn’t get more authentic than that, so why does this treatment feel functional and diluted? It can’t be because there are no voices; Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances carries the melodic invention and harmonic resourcefulness of the score without its lyrics. Could it be because we’re lacking the vibrancy of an orchestral concept that can persuade us we are in 1950s New York but also in a 19th-century opera, as ‘Cool’ slips into ‘A boy like that’? I don’t think so – jazz-based reworkings by Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson and André Previn demonstrate that it is possible to riff off West Side Story’s soul, without words or orchestration.

And therein lies the problem – anaemic soullessness. A backdrop of Manhattan city noise and coy whistling gets the Prologue off to a contrived start. Bernstein’s motivic leapfrogging actually works pretty well on two pianos; what a pity the pitched drums thud like furniture being moved. Then the problems snowball. The ‘Jet Song’ is reimagined as a Meade Lux Lewis boogie-woogie number but the Labèques have learnt rather than feel the idiom, and it sounds like a parody. The ‘Dance at the Gym’ sequence is a potpourri of contrived endings and transitions. Irritating liberties have been taken with the structure of ‘Cool’, and Raphäel Séguinier’s drum fills don’t so much swing as creak.

As ‘The Rumble’ segues into the Finale, the Labèques crank up the sentimentality shamelessly. And their Rhapsody in Blue is similarly cosmetically pretty. You can play the notes brilliantly but still get the music wrong.