This is a marvellous recording. It’s not uncommon for conductors as distinguished as Neeme Järvi (who turned 85 last year) to focus their activities on a core group of favoured works, but none of the pieces on this recording has previously appeared in his discography, to the best of my knowledge. Indeed, Reger’s Serenade in G features in the discography of very few conductors, this being the first new recording since the 1990s. Composed in four movements and lasting over 40 minutes, the Serenade is a lyrical, tender and haunting work, its ethereal sonorities achieved by having the strings deployed in two antiphonal groups, one playing with mutes, the other without. Horst Stein’s recording for Koch Schwann – reissued by DG within a collection of Reger’s orchestral works in 2018 – is very good, but Järvi’s new version is even finer.

Wagner’s Polonia is, if anything, even less frequently played and recorded than Reger’s Serenade. Completed in 1836, when Wagner was 23, it’s a work that’s often dismissed for its brashness and lack of subtlety, but Järvi’s performance has a panache and exuberance that’s difficult to resist and may well make new friends for the piece.

Although Brahms’s Schicksalslied enjoys numerous recordings, Järvi’s is distinguished by the radiance and depth of the first and last sections as well as the vehemence of the central allegro. The singing of the Latvian chorus is particularly expressive. The programme concludes with a beautifully soft and sustained performance of Mozart’s Ave verum corpus. All four works benefit from first-class engineering. Anyone tempted by the imaginative programme will not be disappointed.