Perhaps one of the most striking aspects of these performances is the sheer variety of colours and timbres Robin Ticciati manages to extract from the outstanding strings of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra…Throughout each work, Ticciati projects strongly defined phrase characterisation, coupled with a great sense of forward momentum…Exciting, revelatory performances that make you listen afresh to this wonderful life-enhancing music.

By this point in their relationship, Ticciati and the SCO know each other so well that they have every slightest detail at their fingertips, illuminating phrase after phrase with new meaning. For anybody who is open to an alternative view of Brahms this is a highly rewarding set of the symphonies, well played and well recorded. Ticciati’s willingness to let the music breathe is his key virtue and it is that which ultimately gives his performances their distinctive character — a living, breathing, younger man’s Brahms, ready to win new hearts.

There is nothing here that sounds like bog-standard Brahms, nothing that hasn’t been meticulously thought through, barely a bar that doesn’t say something. If that sounds exhausting to listen to, it’s not; Ticciati’s care for keeping the music airborne, coupled with the lucent transparency of the playing, mean that the longest movements fly by.

The key to the new set's special qualities lies in the orchestra's middle name, "chamber". Fifty-seven musicians are featured in total, although the dancing clarity of Ticciati's interpretations isn't solely a matter of numbers. Close attention to phrasings, lithe rhythms and individual instrumental finesse play their part. So does Ticciati's choice of small-bore horns and trombones from the late 19th century, earthier in tone than their modern equivalents.