Bychkov always seems to know where to place the emphasis in emotional climaxes…[Gerstein] shares Bychkov’s balance of big guns and mercurial delicacy…The sound is a beauty, relishing that bloom and resonance you get in Prague’s Rudolfinum without the Czech Phil ever sounding too soft-grained. If you seek single-disc issues only, Manfred and the Pathétique certainly won’t disappoint as among the very best in a crowded field.

Now the series is complete, the Czech Phil responding to the conductor’s lithe, flexible baton with gripping freshness in the rarely programmed early symphonies...I’m less convinced that Gerstein’s technically fluent yet brittle readings of the concertos add value to the seven-CD set, but the symphonies and other orchestral works are for the ages.

The orchestral playing is consistently outstanding – rich, characterful, lyrically responsive – so that it’s easy to understand why Bychkov was so keen to perform Tchaikovsky with the Czech musicians. But he does overdo things, with slow tempi and expressive mouldings that hold the music back when it needs to move forward.

Although this boxed set has its share of longueurs...you can skip to the First Piano Concerto, presented here in its original form: a revelation of delicacy, and a war horse as you’ve never heard it;.