These live performances are engrossing beyond the call of duty: Dohnányi puts joy at the centre of the Fourth Symphony and his second penetrates to its core.

An unusual Brahms double but it's the Fourth which counts as the winner.

Brahms Symphony No 2...has clarity and detail but lacks grandeur. Christoph von Dohnányi elicits plaintive tone from the opening horns and balances the parts with care. The romantic surges of the Adagio are well measured and the Scherzo has a dainty charm, but in neither movement is there any sense of awe. The strings lack sheen, the oboe warmth. A second CD includes Symphony No 4 but the story is the same – accuracy, expertise but no real fire.

[These recordings] are typical Dohnanyi accounts, tough-edged, no-nonsense, massive and unsentimental, but just falling short of the real intensity that makes his best work compelling...And though the orchestral playing is consistently outstanding, there is no sense of occasion or elan.

Dohnanyi and his fine team achieve an apt sense of the momentous in these great works.