This is a record of Haydn on period instruments to recommend with very few reservations indeed. It is the companion disc to the Virgin coupling of the first three "Paris" Symphonies—Nos. 82-4—which SS reviewed in January. Not only does it provide generous measure, it presents period performances, beautifully recorded, which more than most will appeal to those who would normally opt for performances on modern instruments. Under Kuijken the players of OAE wear their authenticity lightly. I am glad that this time the recording acoustic seems marginally less reverberant than on the earlier disc, or at least allows the transparency of the textures to be even better appreciated, as when in the finale of Symphony No. 86 a very fast speed is adopted.

Not that Kuijken is generally a speed-merchant of the kind that period performance tends to encourage. It is true that he takes the minuets faster than we used to expect, but the infectious Landler-like swing of his one-in-a-bar treatment is a delight, and I love the way he maintains the tempo for the trios of Nos. 85 and 86, with their jaunty bassoon solos. With dynamic contrasts underlined, the grandeur of Haydn's arguments is fully brought out as well as the vigour, notably in the slow introductions of Nos. 85 and 86. Yet the harking-back to Sturm und Drang is also apparent, as in the near-quotation of the opening of No. 45, the Farewell, that comes in the first movement of No. 85, La reine. The splendour of that movement is underlined since Kuijken observes the second half repeat as well as the first.