This isn’t at all the Mahler Ninth one might have expected from Barenboim – although maybe, just maybe, his profound fascination with Arnold Schoenberg enables him to push Mahler’s dark night of the soul closer to the edge of reason and radicalism than might otherwise have been the case. A strong pulse is established from the outset – the tempo marking Andante comodo taken at its word though ‘comfortable’ only in the sense of ‘not too slow, not too fast’. Watching Barenboim is also fascinating as the beat is super-emphatic and those traditional, slightly old-fashioned rubatos are pared down to a minimum.

So an impulsive first movement with forensic attention to the grim reapers of the wind section – bass clarinet, stopped horns, muted trombones (highlighted by some obvious spotlighting in the recording balance) – and a series of scarifying climaxes, the last and biggest of which is truly a ride to the abyss. The eerie moments of repose find their own space – Barenboim does not, as Bernstein does, create space for them. In short, I’d say his reading is the more radical for its ‘life is too short’ urgency. The playing is predictably superb, the flute solo into the heart-easing coda especially memorable.

The no-nonsense approach continues, the Ländler-fest of the second movement sprightly and robust with its gemütlich aspects kept on a pretty tight rein. This is country dancing on the rampage – the dance of life under duress. And such charm as there is turns to desperation in the Rondo-Burleske. Counterpoint for the neurotic. But what genius then to glimpse the valedictory finale at its still centre.

That finale brings a protracted hymn of deep, woody string-playing which must have sounded quite marvellous in the Berlin Philharmonie acoustic. But again Barenboim is ‘straighter’, less interventionist, than the likes of Bernstein, whose highly theatrical take on the disintegrating final pages (in his Concertgebouw recording on DG) adds controversy to Mahler’s daring. With Abbado, in his now-famous Lucerne Festival DVD, eternity is not glimpsed – as Bernstein would have it – between the notes but after they have faded. Almost five minutes of silent contemplation. Barenboim barely gives us five seconds.

The ‘bonus’ feature chronicles Barenboim and Boulez coming together to ‘share’ a cycle of the Mahler symphonies and along with snatches of rehearsal we gain some insight into their (surprisingly) not dissimilar conducting philosophies through a filmed conversation. One unfortunate metaphor from maestro Barenboim could turn this into a collector’s item.