Semyon Bychkov’s Mahler series, the first from a Czech orchestra in 40 years, is tackling the symphonies in no particular order and with varying degrees of success. This instalment proves something of a triumph. Whatever weight you place on Mahler’s Bohemian and Moravian connections, the First is a late 19th-century composition envisioned initially as a large-scale symphonic poem. Here we have the requisite old-school sonority – slide-prone, open-textured strings and vestigially vibrant Mitteleuropean winds – in a period-appropriate venue, Prague’s Rudolfinum. Thanks in part to the skills of Holger Urbach’s production team, the effect is translucent despite the Dvořák Hall’s famously long reverberation period.

The rural atmosphere (though not the tempos) will be welcomed by fans of Rafael Kubelík: he set down his second version of the First Symphony with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (DG, 5/68) and there’s an even better repeat-shy live account from Munich if you can find it (Audite, 4/00). True, Bychkov is more self consciously forensic about detail, also admitting spells of autumnal repose which might have surprised the young Gustav Mahler. Inevitably some will detect a want of momentum in the outer movements. I’d argue that the playing is almost always beautiful enough to silence the doubts. The second and third movements go better still. The Ländler never gets bogged down – Leonard Bernstein (DG, 3/89) digs ‘deeper’ but only with the benefit of hindsight – and Bychkov’s Trio is not unattractively manicured. The slow movement sounds freshest, its ethnic allegiance undisguised but subtly drawn. Would-be idiomatic inflections don’t all happen in the Bernstein places. Thankfully Bychkov rejects the delusional preference for massed double basses in the initial ‘Frère Jacques’ canon. Harp contributions are integrated rather than spotlit.

At the very end of a daringly long-breathed finale, histrionic only when it needs to be, Bychkov follows the American brand leader in adding an apocryphal timpani stroke, possibly here doubled by bass drum. No matter. I can’t think of a lovelier, better-sounding account of this music even if the airiness, civility and control may not always convey the impetuosity of a composer in his twenties. Recommended.