With period-instrument versions of Schubert symphonies on disc fast becoming the norm rather than the exception, the fact that this review will probably not mention a single name from generations of 'traditional' interpreters should not be taken to imply that your reviewer regards them as yesterday's men, far from it. Maybe in a decade we will be thinking of supplementing an 'authentic' performance with a modern-instrument one, but for the moment it is still the other way around.

Frivolous and provocative digressions aside, on initial acquaintance, Mackerras, with more conventional (slower) tempos in both the Fifth and Eighth Symphonies, seems less intent on challenging tradition than Norrington (EMI). The Fifth here is certainly a good deal more genial, carefree, and closer to the sunny Schubert Fifth we have always known and loved. From the opening bars, Mackerras's orchestra sounds more comfortable with the slower pace, whereas Norrington's urgency puts an obvious strain on his players. I have lived with Norrington's Fifth for over two years now, and try as I may, I cannot help feeling that a touch of moderation in this first movement would have helped his cause, for, elsewhere, there is no doubt in my mind that his is the more consistently stimulating interpretation; that is, if you want your Schubert Fifth given a darker, more nervous, almost Sturm und Drang treatment. Plausible? Yes, I think so. Was Schubert, for example, just having fun when he wrote the agitated ff 'episode' that precedes the finale's second subject? Is it just a storm in a teacup? EMI's Abbey Road No. 1 Studio was the location for both recordings, and of the two, the Virgin sound catches a brighter edge to the instruments, with a little more space around the orchestra.

That extra space affords greater mystery to the cellos and basses at the start of Mackerras's Unfinished, and the violins' ensuing semiquavers are sul ponticello to chilling effect. In this movement Mackerras hits harder than Norrington; the anguished howls after the second subject's song breaks off are from the heart; the jabbing dotted wind figure in the development (from 8'06") threatens the main theme more fiercely. The manner is grander, more rhetorical. I have my doubts, though, about his 'slow' tempo (compared to Norrington and Bruno Weil) for the second movement, given his orchestra's vibrato-less string playing, and his decision to lean on accents with a longer diminuendo than Norrington's shorter, sharper emphases; the result struck me on more than one occasion as inexpressive and heavy.

However, Mackerras's disc has one very positive advantage over Norrington's: he may not include every last repeat in the Fifth Symphony, as does Norrington, but his disc finds room for the Eighth's Scherzo orchestrated—and in the case of its Trio, virtually composed—by Brian Newbould; and the B minor Entr'acte from Rosamunde, which Schubert may have originally written as the finale of the symphony. And, despite reservations, Mackerras offers a more convincing 'finished' Eighth than Marriner (Philips), largely because the latter is comparatively wooden in the first two movements. The "delicious" (Tovey's description) Ballet Music in G completes a generously filled disc.

Bruno Weil's Unfinished is surely too relentless. That the eventual F sharp of the opening is not held for its full length is an early indication of nervy podium hustling. There is not the faintest hint of slackening for the transition to the second subject (horns and bassoons at 1'00"), and little more for any other of the transitions in either symphony for that matter; and the first movement's final chord is almost brutal (no diminuendo). Weil writes in the accompanying booklet of the "questionable accents and sforzati that strain the clarity of articulation". Well, I don't sense clarity of articulation to be strained in the slightest degree in Norrington's second movement. Indeed, those accents, for me, add an extra imaginative dimension. Weil's tempo for this Andante is almost identical to Norrington's, yet, unlike Norrington's, it feels rigidly maintained (no slowing for the coda). Neither is The Classical Band (formed in 1989 from New York's "finest period-instrument players") as recorded here, possessed of such full toned strings as the London Classical Players; the bass line is often weak, and the trumpets over-assertive.