To launch his inaugural concert as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director, Andris Nelsons chose the Overture to Wagner’s Tannhäuser, an opera he first encountered as a five-year-old and an indelible experience which made him want to be a conductor. Nelsons directs with his customary zest and watchful sensitivity, while securing uncommonly articulate results from his dedicated band.

It certainly makes for a tasty starter before the main course of Sibelius’s Second Symphony, here given a performance of thrilling accomplishment, exploratory zeal and genuine stature under the scrupulously attentive baton of the dynamic young Latvian. His is a memorably alive and intrepidly characterful conception of entrancing sweep, elasticity and grip that hits indisputable heights in the bardic second movement and exultant finale, the latter sounding as refreshingly unhackneyed and confident in its stride as I can ever recall, and whose closing pages positively blaze with fervour and nobility (magnificent brass). My goodness, but it really does warm the cockles to hear this great orchestra firing on all cylinders in repertoire in which it enjoys such a doughty tradition. Nelsons’s own preface in the booklet rightly mentions the BSO’s famous recordings of this very symphony under both Serge Koussevitzky and Sir Colin Davis; his consistently judicious and nourishing account is worthy to join their company.

The commendably quiet Boston audience responds with justifiable enthusiasm, and Shawn Murphy’s production captures everything with plenty of body, clarity and presence. I’m already itching to hear a lot more on disc from this exciting new partnership.