Dmitri Kitaenko’s Tchaikovsky symphony cycle continues to provoke decidedly mixed emotions within me. Admiration, certainly, for the expertly honed orchestral contribution and ‘take you there’ impact of the recorded sound achieved by the WDR production team in Cologne; but the wayward Third needs every last drop of charisma, swagger and conviction from its performers if it is to succeed, and those selfsame qualities are precisely what I miss in this admittedly proficient display. Granted, Kitaenko does manage to distil the necessary potent mix of bardic mystery and aching poignancy in the symphony’s magical Andante elegiaco centrepiece (that glorious, long-breathed string cantilena at its heart is indisputably one of the composer’s most inspired creations), and the ensuing Scherzo skips along with precisely the right Mendelssohnian daintiness. But elsewhere, for too much of the time, this remains a stubbornly earthbound, surprisingly po-faced affair, with a second movement that is unhelpfully heavy on its pins and both outer movements prone to lapse into dutiful routine. Turning to the great Evgeni Svetlanov’s electrifying live relay on BBC Legends with the USSR State SO from the 1968 Edinburgh Festival, one enters an entirely different, authentically Slavic world, brimful of temperament, spine-tingling intensity, risk-taking flair and passion – those thudding timpani towards the close will lift you out of your seat, I promise.

The coupling comprises a disappointingly literal, at times downright fussy account of the concert suite from The Sleeping Beauty, weirdly shorn of the captivating ‘Pas de caractère’ for Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat, and featuring the most flat-footed rendering of the final Waltz I can recall. All very strange, and no match for the genius of Mstislav Rostropovich and the Berlin Philharmonic, who serve up as unbridled a display of corporate virtuosity, allied to an outsize personality and total identification with this sublime music, as you are ever likely to hear.