Dohnanyi always gives good Mendelssohn, a composer whose music responds well to his neat, precise, tasteful, understated style of conducting. The Scottish Symphony captured here displays all of these virtues in lively tempos, typically superb playing by the Clevelanders, and a finale in which the add-on coda emerges with impressive naturalness from what has come before. But the real treat is the coupling: Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Witches’ Sabbath), a marvelous and (for Mendelssohn) quite ferocious cantata lasting a bit more than half an hour in which a pack of bloodthirsty druids intimidate a bunch of squeamish Christians.

This is a grand, satisfying performance on almost every count. Its stature allows me for the moment to put aside the baggage of all earlier recordings and assess it on its own merits alone. In the first place, following on his successful Rheingold (Decca, 11/95), Dohnanyi conducts a well-paced, thought-through reading that at once creates dramatic excitement and attends to the longer view. From the opening storm right through to the Magic Fire Music there’s a welcome sense of forward movement everywhere, except in the middle of Act 2 where in places Dohnanyi slows down inordinately, allowing the score to become momentarily becalmed.