With a conclusively established dating of its composition to 1869 – between Nos 1 and 2 – Bruckner’s first D minor symphony has been ‘un-cancelled’ in recent years. There was a straightforwardly documentary value to Bernard Haitink’s 1966 recording (Philips, 4/67), but modern conductors have thus found themselves obliged to do more with the piece than present it as an exercise.

Like Christian Thielemann on Sony, Andris Nelsons sets the kind of steadily momentous pulse that underscores the affinity of the opening movement with the Third, where Bruckner reassembled several of his D minor ideas into a bolder and more Wagnerian architectural form. Paavo Järvi (RCA) and Marcus Bosch (Coviello, 4/14) convince me that the material warrants a livelier spring in its step, though even they leave me reflecting that Otto Dessoff had a point when he looked at the score and wounded the composer by asking: ‘OK, so where’s the theme?’

Where Nelsons scores over most of his rivals, however, is in a proportionately broader account of the Andante, which is invested here with a nobility of feeling that anticipates the mature Adagio movements without obscuring either the Gothic character of its cadences or the Schubertian profile of its woodwind- and brass-writing. While there are persuasively smaller-scaled and more vigorously dynamic ways to do the symphony justice – Järvi foremost among them – Nelsons puts on colourfully rustic, clumping boots for the Scherzo (which Bruckner overwrites in No 2) and again gives the Trio space in search of a profundity of expression that proves elusive.

Better still, Nelsons comes good in the finale and teases out a cohesive shape where most versions fall apart at points such as the fanfare-transition between introduction and main material, drawing out striking resemblances to early Tchaikovsky (their first acknowledged symphonies both dating from 1866). While not the last word in precision, the playing of the Leipzig Gewandhaus in this live recording is weighted and polished with a finesse that places it above the competition. The Wagner fillers are known quantities from the Nelsons discography but here respond in complementary kind to the communicative urgency of the Bruckner.