This entertainment alternatives between relatively unfamiliar short works and famous showstoppers. Petrenko and his Liverpool players make the liveliest possible argument for Kabalevsky’s Colas Breugnon…There’s not been a finer balance of direct poetry and brazen oom-pah in the usual suspects from Khachaturian’s big Roman ballet Spartacus; careful pacing makes the swoons of the famous Adagio unhackneyed.

This is one of those discs that commands respect (this conductor is pretty much always a safe investment) without setting the world on fire...Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Petrenko’s account of the Mussorgsky/ Ravel Pictures is that it feels mindful of the piano original in the way that it is inflected and shaped. Picture for picture it’s hard to fault playing or characterisation on a leisurely stroll round the gallery – but then again, do any of these aural images really leap out at you? Yes and no.

All the items here, shorter pieces by Kabalevsky, Khatchaturian, Schedrin and Rachmaninov, confirm the RLPO as Britain’s finest band for Russian music. Petrenko leaves an orchestra on spectacular form to his successor, Domingo Hindoyan.

A fine recording.

Well played indeed and brilliantly recorded.