Throughout Nila (named after Greco’s mother, the dancer Nila Amparo, and inspired by a trip he made to Danbury Connecticut, in the fall of 1997), the cello and piano conspire to create relentlessly unexpected equivalents of such things as double-stops and cascading spirals. Despite the music’s episodic nature, the sections melt so organically into each other that the speeds change from necessity rather than external demands.

Southern Comfort gives the viola an extremely powerful vehicle, sombre in either light or shade, its momentum interrupted two-thirds of the way through by slow-moving crescendo of terrible, intense power. Wonderland stretches the string trio almost to breaking-point, combining spectral contrasts, harsh textures and full-blown romantic lyricism leading to an angrily ambiguous conclusion. The Madrid-based Russian string trio and pianist Ilona Timchenko are so deeply into the music that it might have been composed with them in mind. They take a measure, full-bodied approach to each bar and create a powerful flow that looks deep inside the music. In their various configurations, the four musicians explore with relish the wide-ranging variety of intensities Greco’s music implies, complemented in the other three pieces here by Timchenko’s beautiful piano sound.

Richard Floeckher’s programme notes provide an Alice in Wonderland-cum-Nietzschean subtext to the music which, whether it actually corresponds to Greco’s thinking, is vaporized by the music itself. The excellent sound, recorded in and around Madrid, is overlaid with a bold Mediterranean patina that recalls the analogue 1950s, ensuring that the superb players make the most eloquent case possible for Greco’s fascinating creations.

The Ballet music from The Perfect Fool comprises elemental dances from the opera which itself runs to about 75-80 minutes – ideal for a CD project. Chandos provide a deeply pleasing and vivacious recording – one of their very best. It delivers a palette of detailing stimulatingly placed across the aural span. The brass are imperiously emphatic and the more feline touches - such as the soft and cool flute playing - are rendered with touching expression. If you already enjoy Dukas’s L’Apprenti Sorcier or Chabrier’s España or Holst’s The Planets then this is something you must get to know. The classic Decca Boult recording of the ballet music is brilliant but was made in the 1960s. Hickox’s is every bit its equal but basks in contemporary sound. Never mind that the full fairytale opera with its complement of wizards, narcoleptic fools, princesses and elemental spirits pokes fun at Verdi and Wagner clichés; these bejewelled dances are immensely enjoyable in their own right. By the way, the opera itself is lots of fun as those who heard the Groves (1972) and Handley (Christmas Day, 1995) broadcasts will attest. In terms of character you might bracket it with RVW’s Poisoned Kiss­:entertaining, brilliant and touching.

In practice The Perfect Fool dances are the most familiar pieces here. The other scores are largely unknown. The two choral ballets are new to CD (see footnote). If you recall a recording of The Golden Goose it’s Imogen Holst’s version minus chorus on SRCD 223. Also sans chorus is The Morning of the Year dances on SRCD 209 – the same disc includes the ballet music from The Lure. The Golden Goose score is in seven  tracks. It’s a score in which Holst’s folk-song manner is present as it is in his Somerset Rhapsody – see Boult-Holst Lyrita disc. This is not the end of the story because other streams flow in including a Tippett-like delicacy (near the start), a proud bluff manner: part RVW and part de Falla’s Tricorne and a wassailing beguilement. The singing is precise yet springy and wonderfully attentive to dynamics and word-shaping. There’s also a ready sense of humour evident – how about the refrain: “I shan’t get home in time to make my old man’s dinner tonight!” It’s not all broad humour though – listen to the Neptune-ethereal singing at 3:44 on tr. 6. At tr. 9 the voice of the solo violin rises in a pristine dancing delicacy – which reminded me a little of Holst’s ascetic Four Songs for voice and violin (1916). The Lure is memorable for the satisfying shark-skin abrasion of the strangely Hispanic brass playing, its music-box grace (4:40) and a gorgeously Rimskian swell (5:40). The xylophone punctuation in the more exuberant brass recalled similar effects in Hanson’s first two symphonies and Lament for Beowulf. Finally The Morning of the Year brings us back to the choir and orchestra. This is a somewhat lower key score but has its charms. Its folkdance feeling is consistent with the dedication - which is to the English Folk Dance Society. In this sense it recalls one of RVW’s few unrecorded scores: the large-scale Folk Songs of the Four Seasons written for a Women’s Institute extravaganza in the 1950s and rarely heard since. Holst is a degree more nuanced and mystical. In the penultimate segment the slowly accelerating swing of voices and orchestra into dance suggests that William Mathias knew the score before writing his This Worldes’s Joie. This mood can be contrasted with the asceticism of tr. 14 with its echoes of Betelgeuse from Holst’s Humbert Wolfe Songs and the pantheistic mysteries of The Hymn of Jesus recalled in the first segment of the ballet.

I listened to this in conventional CD mode but those who have SACD are in for an even more intense experience.

Richard Hickox died in the middle of a sequence of sessions to record Holst’s A Choral Symphony – a sequence of Keats-settings.

The listening experience of this disc is completed in princely style with full texts reproduced in the booklet. There’s also an attentive and authoritative note by Colin Matthews who has worked on many Holst scores including several used here.

The first movement has a rugged intensity that recalls Klemperer, and the insanely powerful, crushing brass chords that usher in the recapitulation have to be heard to be believed. Here is another case where taking a risk pays off: Eschenbach really slams on the brakes here, and if you're going to do that the brass had better blow their collective lips off--and so they do. The very slow but overwhelming percussion crescendo in the finale offers another example of exactly the same tactic. Actually, the first (instrumental) half of the finale doesn't drag at all, and the concluding chorus really does deliver the goods thanks in large part to the weighty and perfectly balanced presence of the organ.

The live sonics are a bit cavernous and a touch low-level, but very rich in the bass and nicely complementary to the atmospherics of the performance as a whole. The soft tam-tam in the first movement (and elsewhere) is excellently caught, for example, but the cymbals are oddly off-mike, and this robs some of the climaxes of the power that Eschenbach is clearly conjuring from everyone else. In all other respects, though, the playing of the Philadelphia Orchestra is pretty outstanding: rich strings, gutsy brass (as already suggested), and poetic winds (solo oboe particularly). Ultimately, with so many choices available at such a high level of interpretive and technical accomplishment, the question nowadays is not so much whether this is "the best" Mahler 2 available, but rather, does it offer enough special moments to reward repeated listening. Yes, it does.

The duets for tenors are particularly satisfying. When the high voices return towards the end they seem in far better form: “Ohimè dov’ è il mio ben” is charming, and “Chiome d’oro” has some genuinely witty touches that left me smiling – I’m fairly certain that they’ll bear repeated listening. Though not over-nourished, the continuo section is full of character and often incisive – a fully engaged protagonist. Despite the odd blemish, the set as a whole breathes a sense of commitment often lacking from La Venexiana’s, and the sound recording has greater presence. The concluding ballo, “Tirsi e Clori”, is something of a showstopper: the cast is audibly enjoying itself. Earlier instalments of this series have sometimes left me questioning the wisdom of an all-male cast in this repertoire, but here there’s  more than enough to silence the sceptic.