Currentzis has a clear and unified vision of the music’s trajectory, his interpretation grabbing you by the scruff of the neck…Most remarkable of all is the clarity of sound achieved here which ensures every single layer in Tchaikovsky’s miraculously inventive orchestration can be heard…This performance is so devastatingly powerful that it would be difficult to imagine hearing anything else alongside it.

This is a symphony of silences; Currentzis has calibrated them with the unsparing precision of a Pinter or a Haneke...Perhaps, in the Pathétique, Currentzis has met his match...It’s early days, but only the most exalted of comparisons suggest themselves...Will this also upset some applecarts? It is an unsettling experience.

Currentzis makes [the horns] snarl, sizzle, and growl like no other performance I can recall...For all its individual quirks, it must certainly be one of the most tumultuous, breathtaking, and electrifying recordings of this piece that I have heard in quite some time, and I would recommend it very highly.

Currentzis and his Siberian shock troops have done wonders...The recent trend has been away from overly subjective interpretations. This is thrown out of the window in this remarkably unsettling rendition...When so many other recordings of this symphony are available at the push of a few buttons, it’s only right that today’s interpreters should approach it only if they have something new to say. Currentzis definitely does.

There is more cultivated Tchaikovsky out there, to be sure, and more precise, too, but none more faithful to his devastating purpose. The climaxes of the first movement feature some of the scariest conducting I have ever heard, the dark night of a soul pushed over the brink.