Daniel Barenboim’s time at the BBC Proms this summer was entirely taken up with Wagner’s Ring but four years ago he brought his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra to the Albert Hall for this programme of Liszt’s Les préludes and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. This is the recording of that performance on August 21, 2009.

There are, of course, dozens of competing discs of the Symphonie fantastique in the catalogue, and only last year Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra produced a benchmark interpretation on Linn. But this one has the perceptible atmosphere of a live occasion, the young musicians of the West-Eastern Divan reacting alertly and unanimously to Barenboim’s sense of the music’s character and expressive contours. The scene-setting in the opening ‘Rêveries – Passions’ is crafted with finesse and vigour, Barenboim shaping the violin line with a natural feel for its give and take. Similarly, the crucial slowing down at the apex of the melody in ‘Un bal’ is done without fuss. There is plenty of instrumental detail here, as befits any performance of Berlioz, though I could have done with more projection of the harps in the only movement where Berlioz uses them. The dramatic impulse throughout the symphony is secure and Barenboim certainly knows how to whip up a macabre, menacing fantasy in the ‘Songe d’une nuit du Sabbat’.

Liszt’s Les préludes makes for a well-chosen, complementary companion piece, played here with richness of texture, a discerning grip on its grandeur and an affectionate embrace of its lyrical allure.