Storgårds in Manchester gives an appropriately humanised interpretation, set on a wide sound stage that is one of Chandos’s natural best. The cinematic opening twitches with inner life, all dynamics duly observed, while the polyphony of stirring to action in the second movement is ideally clear…Impressive solos from muted trumpets and low-register cor anglais add sophistication.

On its own terms this new account makes for a satisfying listen. The orchestra plays well and is captured in vivid, transparent sound. Storgårds shows a special sensitivity for the score at its quietist, in the dawn scene of the first movement and the elegiac opening of the third movement, “Memoriam.” The crowd-pleasing rat-a-tat-tat is done with intense fervor.

This is a resounding performance...but more significantly it is a searching, very inward reading, too. John Storgårds favours an expansive, widescreen approach underlining the work’s theatricality and lending the big set pieces an implacable power...a terrific performance and a terrific-sounding disc.

Storgårds paces the drama with inexorable tread, inspiring the players to shattering climaxes in the massacre “scene” — the second movement — and the final “Tocsin”, in which real church bells ring out at the symphony’s “optimistic” denouement. The atmosphere of foreboding before the massacre, and numbed shock after the event, are evocatively caught.