After his much-praised recordings of the "Paris" Symphonies (2/90 and 5/90), Sigiswald Kuijken, now with La Petite Bande, gives us two of the Cinderella works among Haydn's late symphonies. Composed in 1788 for the same Parisian concert society that had commissioned Nos. 82 to 87, both these symphonies have been rather eclipsed by their companion work, the so-called Oxford, No. 92. But while neither contains anything quite as sublime as the Oxford Symphony's Adagio, they are both marvellous works, full of ripe, sophisticated invention, bold and brilliant in No. 90, with its panoply of trumpets and high horns, warmer and more intimate in No. 91, as you would expect from the key of E flat major. The symphonies are exact contemporaries of Mozart's final trilogy, confirming 1788 as the richest symphonic year ever. But though a comparison of the two C major symphonies, Haydn's No. 90 and Mozart's Jupiter, underlines crucial differences between the composers, No. 91's triple-time first movement does sometimes bring to mind the mellow, expansive lyricism of the opening movement in Mozart's E flat Symphony No. 39.

Kuijken and his players bring to both works the same verve, sense of style and technical accom- plishment that distinguished the readings of the "Paris" works. Textures are open and luminous, with important flute and oboe lines distinctly audible in the tuttis; the strings' articulation is that much lighter than on modern instruments, as, for example, in the delicately pointed main theme in No. 90's first movement; and tempos are shrewdly chosen, the rival claims of grace and gravity finely balanced in the two Andantes, the minuets on the brisk side (perhaps that in No. 90 could do with a touch more aristocratic poise) but always rhythmically buoyant, with a nice lilt in the Landler-like trio of No. 91. Though Kuijken's orchestra, based on a string section of 6.5.3.3.2, is quite modest (closer to Haydn's own Esterhazy band than the more lavish forces of the Paris Concert de la Loge Olympique), the dynamic range of these performances is unusually wide, with the composer's detailed markings scrupulously observed: listen to the strings' power and precision in the brilliant octave passages in No. 90, the whiplash offbeat accents in the finale of No. 91 and, at the other end of the spectrum, the feathery pianissimo playing in the two slow movements. Kuijken, incidentally, observes every repeat throughout both works, except in the finale of No. 90 where he presumably felt that Haydn's outrageous joke at the start of the coda would pall a second time.