This is Jukka-Pekka Saraste's debut on disc with the orchestra of which he is Principal Conductor, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and very impressive it is. In much-recorded Mozart the test could hardly be more severe, and it is Saraste's achievement to draw from his players fresh, alert performances, strong as well as elegant, which more than the direct rivals on modern instruments reflect the new lessons of period performance. So taking the outstanding EMI versions of Jeffrey Tate and the ECO as a yardstick, Saraste's readings of all three symphonies have a less sostenuto style, with string articulation a degree lighter, violin tone on the thin side, and with beefy horn tone cutting through textures more sharply. With the recording acoustic fairly reverberant, there is no smallness of scale implied, and the textures remain commendably transparent; woodwind lines are audible even when doubling with strings. Speeds are generally a degree faster than with Tate, and in such a movement as the Andante of the Haffner I certainly prefer Saraste's lighter, more detached style at a more flowing tempo.