The first release in Finnish maestro Osmo Vänskä’s Mahler cycle with the Minnesota Orchestra – Mahler’s Fifth Symphony – divided critics and listeners, some finding in it a longed-for clarity and restraint while others heard in those same attributes a clinical sterility. There’s no doubt this disc, Mahler’s Sixth, will provoke a similar debate.

Dubbed Tragische (Tragic), Mahler’s Sixth was written when the composer was in his element – his second daughter Anna had just been born, his conducting career was at its height and his composing career was taking off – but people (not least his wife Alma) have been eager to find in the hammer blows of its final...