In the mid-1960s the BBC broadcast three orchestral programmes under the pessimistic title The Symphonic Twilight, which afforded the first opportunity for the wider British audience to see Bernstein conducting. The venue was the then still-recently opened (and acoustically superb) Fairfield Halls in Croydon; Bernstein conducted the LSO and provided short talks on each work in interview with executive producer Humphrey Burton. Two of the programmes have been restored for this DVD (only Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is missing) and what a contrasting pair they make: The Rite of Spring, imbued with a primitive carnality that still sounds electrifying, and a compellingly controlled account of Sibelius’s heroic Fifth. Sound quality in both is not perfect but is more than adequate for us to gauge the measure of Bernstein as a conducting force at the time. And what a force, too: listen to the invigorating, hell-for-leather pace of the opening of Sibelius’s finale, where one really feels the rush of air from Thor’s hammer swinging or the swans’ wings over Ainola. The result is far more compelling than Oramo’s Nobel Concert account; nor are there accidents in the hammer-blows such as disfigured Berglund’s live sound-only issue (LPO, 11/12). In The Rite, Bernstein makes the most of its rhythmic complexities and metrical irregularities, about which he talks illuminatingly to Burton – even if he misjudged the future of the symphony as a form.

Visually, the black-and-white camerawork fascinates, often drawn to Bernstein like a moth to the flame. Older, London-based concert-goers will have fun spotting young versions of familiar players. For all Bernstein’s antics on the podium – at one point in the Sibelius’s finale he flaps his arms like a bird – the most telling visual image is that of a clarinettist early in The Rite playing his solo with total concentration, his eyes constantly moving between his part and his conductor.