It has become difficult for new Mahler releases to establish their credentials in a crowded market. Riccardo Chailly’s symphonic intégrale has aroused great enthusiasm in some quarters and this epic Ninth not only completes his cycle but may be his final recording project with the Concertgebouw, an orchestra whose Mahler tradition is second to none. James Levine first tackled the piece on disc in the 1970s for RCA and this 1999 Munich (Philharmonie im Gasteig) relay will no doubt impress his many admirers just as much. It is uncommitted buyers who will be wary of the less-than-generous layout common to both and their shared air of deliberation.

That slowness is differently motivated and distributed. The Italian conductor sets a relatively unforced pace throughout, allowing a further degree of relaxation for lyrical passages. At the same time he plays up the novel, edgy extremities of Mahler’s soundworld. The result, for me at least, is a kind of grandiose non-sequitur. In the first movement someone has gone to special lengths to find the right low bells for bars 337-46 (21’30”ff) and they are miked accordingly. And yet the emotional temperature remains obstinately low, lower than in any of the great recordings of the past. While the Ländler teems with precisely observed detail, (its insouciant pay-off is exquisitely achieved), some of the nuancing seems merely heavy-handed. The Rondo-Burleske is not really energised enough either, for all that the anticipation of the Adagio is tenderly done. The weight of string sonority there is as impressive as you might expect from this source but for me the musical argument remains earthbound in respectful abstraction.

Levine offers much more in the way of visceral engagement, despite some not-quite-unanimous playing. While his overall conception might seem similarly laid-back, this is a conductor who has not forgotten how to build a cathartic climax. You do have to contend with a disc-break between the second and third movements and a performance that is bookended by applause. It is the finale that accounts for the extra degree of heavenly length, a protracted leave-taking that approaches the trance-like state of late Bernstein. So what if the strings lack the heft of the Dutch orchestra? I found myself responding positively to the slight regional accent of the horn and the softer grain of the ensemble as a whole. Audiophiles will find the recording sonically unspectacular after Decca’s studio effort; it does however convey Levine’s relatively circumspect, homogeneous brand of Mahlerian sonority.

Only one conclusion is possible: among recent versions of this extraordinary work, Claudio Abbado’s remains well ahead of the pack.