The hour was late, my day had been hellish, the decanter beckoned. Perhaps just a wee dram and the first movement. A few moments in and the Glenfiddich was forgotten. This is one of the greatest Mahler recordings and performances I’ve ever heard. The illustrious producer Walter Legge once opined that a conductor should build like a Moghul emperor and finish like a jeweller, and this is one of the elements which create the magic here: Jansons never loses sight of the gigantic scale of this symphony, while acknowledging and refining every detail.

Tempos are generally slow and the overall timing makes this one of the slowest Mahler Thirds available. No matter! The playing of the Concertgebouw is not just beyond reproach – it’s beyond belief.

The wilder sections of the first movement may lack the manic abandon of Bernstein, but the interchanges between the brass and woodwind are just one instance of the sensitivity and imagination that suffuse this account. Jansons’ rubato in the dreamy second movement is just as impressive and the offstage post horn solo in the third is equally magical.

Bernarda Fink is beautifully poised in the fourth and fifth movements. The finale is often problematic, and a misreading often robs the work of its rightful climax. Here, Jansons grades his climaxes masterfully in a reading which is, ironically, less slow than usual but reaches its conclusion with plangent strings and brass playing of such heft to take your breath away.