While not exactly a stranger to the concert listings, Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony has never enjoyed the popularity of the sublime Seventh or monumental Eighth. By the side of those towering achievements, the Fifth can seem to be missing a dimension.

At 80 minutes, it’s a substantial score, however, and it was good to have the opportunity to hear Jiri Belohlavek, who has a flair for this kind of repertoire, tackle the Fifth in a BBC Symphony programme solely devoted to it. If the first movement, in his hands, remained aloof and impersonal, that is as much a comment on the music as on the interpreter.

The noble tread of the Adagio second movement, though, was suffused with warmth, while the Scherzo hinted, for all its brassy clamour, at the preternatural quality that Bruckner presumably had in mind when he referred to it as his “Fantastic” symphony. Belohlavek’s handling of the Trio, playful and puckish, pursued that idea, before the return of the clangorous Scherzo material.

The BBC players delivered the goods but little more, and there were occasional moments of sour tuning and less than razor-sharp ensemble. It would be over-generous to say that the orchestra’s tone was sumptuous in the finale but it was certainly not lacking in terms of weight of tone and explosive potency. The hard-earned apotheosis was undeniably stirring.