In a performance of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony as perspicaceous, coherent and sentient as that given by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, it seems only right to give the work its full title. This was “a performing version of the draft” prepared by Deryck Cooke in collaboration with Berthold Goldschmidt and Colin and David Matthews. Chailly made us understand and appreciate every detail of their realisation of Mahler’s unfinished sketches, as only the finest of conductors are able to do.

This symphony is particularly close to Chailly’s heart — and he now breathes with its every dying and regenerating breath. The supple line of violas sang out as though they had always been there. And, as the rest of the orchestra filtered in, Chailly balanced their energies with the unerring eye of a draughtsman. He teased the assymetries of a Scherzo in which the Leipzig horns sounded as though from the depths of a forest. And the strings played with real attitude in the Trio.

And then Purgatory. In the tiny movement that is Mahler’s reaction to the crisis in his marriage, time seemed truly out of joint. But not for long. Chailly set up an irresistible counterpointing of textures at the start of the second Scherzo, with violin and oboe solos to die for. And then death itself: life snuffed out, it seemed, by the numb thud of the drum. Shostakovich’s still small voice of the spirit, so often sung out by a solo flute, is surely a spectre of Mahler’s own casting of this instrument as serene redeemer. The Leipzig flute, as distinctive and distinguished as each of the orchestra’s woodwind principals, led the way to Chailly’s minutely controlled final, hushed affirmation.

Before the interval, the orchestra had paid buoyant tribute to one of its own past conductors. Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No 1 was played deliciously by Saleem Abboud Ashkar, as though he loved and respected the work deeply — and not merely as though he loved performing it.

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