Kate Royal (soprano), Magdalena Kozena (mezzo soprano), Rundfunkchor Berlin, BPO/Simon Rattle EMI 647 3632 (2 CDs) ****

Does lightning strike in the same place twice? Or three times? A performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony was crucial to the early stages of Simon Rattle’s career. His acclaimed 1986 recording of the work was a major landmark in his years with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. So twice, yes. And now he’s taken the work on again, offering a range of new perspectives with the Berlin Philharmonic, in an approach that’s stronger on analytic detail than atmosphere. Rattle is more concerned with revealing what you might call micro-information rather than capturing the broader strokes of the whole. The effect is both mesmerising and distancing, everything in its place with sometimes miraculous exactness, but in a way that can sound lovingly surgical where the younger Rattle, with better soloists, seemed more directly engaged. See url.ie/57cs