British audiences may best remember Jamaican-born Andrew Gourlay as assistant to Mark Elder at the Hallé or for his conducting of Graham Vick’s Birmingham Opera Company revival of Tippett’s The Ice Break in 2015. Always peripatetic, his Spanish connections date back to his victory at the 2010 Cadaqués International Conducting Competition. After three years as music director of Valladolid’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, he has decided to eschew niche repertoire and go for broke with this splendidly alert inaugural release on the orchestra’s own label. We have travelled a long way since uncut orchestral Rachmaninov was considered box-office poison.

As much out of left field as 2001’s Rachmaninov Second from José Cura, this one proves a comparable success. Gourlay’s occasional tendency to linger over transitions does not preclude the sharp characterisation of detail nor the kinetic build-up of climaxes. That said, the omission of the first-movement exposition repeat (observed by Cura though not by the older hands cited below) may worry some. The free-flowing Adagio is moulded less than subtly at times, its famous clarinet solo artless rather than velvety or maximally emotive. Still, the extrovert approach has its attractions and the finale does not outstay its welcome. At the very least the performance fulfils the conductor’s aim ‘to allow our orchestra to shine, and show the level at which we play’. Sound and continuity are in the safe hands of producer Andrew Keener and engineer Dave Rowell, who position us quite near the stage in what seems to be a sonically top-notch hall. If the winds are a little pale, with closely observed violins more memorable for their incisive articulation than their generous warmth of sonority, that is doubtless a reflection of the band’s own characteristics.

Generously paving the way for the main work in physical format, The Isle of the Dead is sharply etched, more brightly lit than the black-and-white reproduction which inspired its composition. One of the several variants of Arnold Böcklin’s painting is reproduced in the accompanying booklet, a surprisingly sumptuous bilingual affair in full colour.