AND ONE TO AVOID…

‘Avoid’ is perhaps harsh: there are no perversities in Sir Andrew Davis’s 2009 interpretation, and the Philharmonia’s contribution has all the rich-toned professionalism one would expect. Yet this is one of those live recordings where, for whatever reason, the result takes too long to lift itself beyond a sense of high-class routine. In Basil Nevinson’s variation (No. 12 out of 14), the music’s heart at last truly seems to beat. That’s leaving it late.