It was interesting, that despite his considerable discography, none of his recordings was considered good enough for the recent ABC Classic FM Symphony Countdown, confirming my theory that Rattle’s never recorded anything that hasn’t been done better by at least several other conductors.

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This Brahms cycle, virtually a rite of passage for Chief Conductors of the Berlin Philharmonic, doesn’t have any startling revelations, but is unlikely to disappoint either and improves as it progresses. To describe the playing as wonderful is hardly revelatory either. Rattle certainly unleashes the incomparable firepower in the finale of the First and, somewhat inappropriately, in the first movement of the Second Symphony – no pastoral idyll here.

The Third Symphony receives a glowing performance with steady tempos and the intermezzo-like third movement has a particularly autumnal radiance. The visionary Fourth is sublime from start to finish, with the tango-like rhythm of the opening especially seductive in Rattle’s hands and the passacaglia finale (Brahms’s greatest symphonic movement?) sublimely phrased.

My two quibbles are that Rattle does not observe the first movement repeats in the First and Second Symphonies, yet does in the third. The other is the atrociously niggardly playing...