This new CD joins a select handful of fine recordings of this late-Romantic symphony, of which Marc Albrecht’s vibrant account is still fresh in the mind. As an ensemble, there’s no doubt that the Helsinki Philharmonic is on a par with Albrecht’s Strasbourg orchestra but John Storgårds makes heavy weather of Korngold’s writing, stretching out the long paragraphs on his broad symphonic canvas to the point where the symphony often seems becalmed, the ideas outstaying their welcome. Instead of drawing in the composer’s prolix writing, Storgårds is indulgent to the point where each new idea seems over-parted from the last.

Dance in the Old Style, scored for a smaller ensemble, is a charming antidote to what has gone before. This work from the youthful Korngold (in its world premiere recording) inhabits the world of Strauss’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme so, although there are no characteristic grand romantic gestures, the orchestra play this dance with an affection and lightness of touch that makes it fresh and appealing.