Mahler's Sixth Symphony explodes into ferocious life with an angry, sour march, led by an army of thudding double basses. For the next 80 minutes there's almost no let up. This is the kind of intense, hard-driven score to which Valery Gergiev responds best, with dangerous, illuminating results.

The LSO has recorded the Sixth with the more urbane Mariss Jansons. This intimacy with the work enabled the players to respond freely and boldly to Gergiev's very different, Dionysian approach.

Forget caution. At the start, they sat poised like racehorses waiting for the off. When Gergiev gave his down beat, with the urgency of gunshot, they went full pelt, yet always with control and finesse.

Gergiev faced a cool response for "harassing" and "skating over" the Third Symphony, which opened this LSO Mahler cycle. In the Sixth his fast-machine style elicited sonic revelations: in the first movement, the huge woodwind chorale sounded almost Russian; in the mad, strange Scherzo, you could hear echoes of Richard Strauss, his close colleague at the time of composition (1904-6).

Yes, more spaciousness in the Andante would have been welcome. But this is turning into a fascinating series, with more to come in January.