‘The sound of groaning cellos’ was how Stéphane Mallarmé evoked the Paris home of Ernest Chausson, though he might simply have been seeking a rhyme (violoncelles) for Chausson’s address (22 Boulevard de Courcelles). But groaning – or at least sombre – cellos certainly launch both Chausson’s three-movement Symphony in B flat and the work generally regarded as its model: the mighty Symphony in D minor by Chausson’s teacher, César Franck. In Jean-Luc Tingaud’s new Berlin recording of the Franck, they’re a melancholy presence. The opening bars are songful but not especially highly charged – an indicator, as it turns out, of the interpretation ahead.

In fairness, it feels pedantic to fault Tingaud’s Franck: it’s not incoherent and the performance is never less than musicianly. But making the most of Franck’s big, unconventionally proportioned paragraphs requires a special kind of structural understanding, as well as an inner fire, and that’s something that Tingaud’s slightly ponderous transitions and rather colourless woodwind section can’t quite supply. Any new recording of this symphony is up against Beecham, Bernstein, Monteux, Maazel and Munch (to name just the Bs and the Ms). Anything less than total commitment won’t wash.

The Chausson fares better: its golden, post-Parsifal orchestration and lyrical sweep make it a less formidable interpretative challenge than the Franck, and Tingaud and his players find an atmosphere that eludes them in the earlier work. Their powerful, slow-burn introduction to the first movement is particularly impressive. Overall, though, Alexandre Bloch’s recent Lille account – warmly praised by Tim Ashley – has the edge for sheer, rapturous verve. The two symphonies make an attractive coupling but stronger individual performances are available elsewhere.