It's a tantalising theory that might explain some of the details of the three works, but which raises almost as many questions as it answers. That, Harnoncourt's reasoning goes, would explain the thematic connections between the three works, and also why the opening to the E-flat Symphony K543 is conceived like an overture, and why neither that work nor the G minor Symphony K550 has what he calls a 'proper' finale, unlike the C major Jupiter Symphony K551, whose last movement seems intended to sum up everything that has come before.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt's versions, the first time he's recorded these works with Concentus Musicus Wien, the orchestra he founded in 1953, is the latest of the sets, but typically for Harnoncourt there is much more to it than just fine period-instrument performances of three of the most familiar works in the symphonic repertoire.Īfter 60 years of studying and conducting these works, Harnoncourt is convinced that Mozart intended the three symphonies, famously composed in just two months in the summer of 1788, as a unity – the parts of a gigantic instrumental oratorio, which was perhaps inspired by a choral work of CPE Bach's, Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu, that he had conducted earlier the same year.

S ince Charles Mackerras's superb recordings with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra appeared in 2008, we have been quite spoiled by new accounts of Mozart's last three symphonies, most recently from Frans Brüggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century (Glossa).

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