I was amazed to read one review of this performance of Sibelius’s First Symphony which confidently asserted that Pietari Inkinen was to be congratulated on his achievement in effacing virtually all traces of Tchaikovsky from the music, as if that were a major criterion in assessing it! Inkinen is no young man in a hurry in Sibelius: his account of the First Symphony, at 40 mins, is one of the longest in the catalogue. His certainly doesn’t stint on the Romantic rhetoric either, pace my fellow reviewer. His reading is leisurely and well upholstered – poles apart from, say, Osmo Vänska’s trim, taut and terrific approach. These recordings are quite closely miked, meaning, inter alia, we hear plenty of harp throughout, especially in my favourite passage, the delicate section of the slow movement where sonic magic is made by the harp, woodwinds and triangle. Alas, the string sound is occasionally thin but, in general, the playing is distinguished and the timpani is well captured in the scherzo. In the unjustly neglected Third – just as elusive in its own way as the Sixth – Inkinen inclines toward steady tempos and I particularly like the way he manages the often awkward…

It is a sweet-sounding instrument, quite emotional and even, in her hands, elegant, but always within a relatively narrow band of expression when compared to the more virtuosic concerto partners, the piano, violin or the unabashed French horn. Mozart’s only surviving concerto for bassoon (he wrote three others, all lost) is a charming work, written when the composer was only 18 years old. It features a particularly beautiful andante, which has a delicious theme anticipating his famous aria Porgi amor from The Marriage of Figaro. The main item on the disc is a recently-discovered concerto by Gioachino Rossini, or at least attributed to him by some scholars. If they are correct, this would be the last piece he wrote for orchestra, before he left Bologna to live the high life in Paris. Sadly, it is a rather perfunctory piece with some pleasing moments but concluding with a rondo in which all high spirits seem assumed. It suggests, more than anything else, that the now-retired Rossini had said all he wanted to say in music. More interest is found in two 19th-century concertos by Conradin Kreutzer and Bernhard Crusell, who ride above the limitations of the solo instrument to provide some…