Mozart Symphonies - SCO & Sir Charles Mackerras - The Times

Sir Charles Mackerras has a rare ability with Mozart, both in his path less travelled - taking the best of period and modern approaches and making something thoroughly persuasive - and in his brilliant musical insights. Mackerras and Scottish Chamber Orchestra's take on Mozart's final four symphonies is consistently fresh and illuminating. The Prague Symphony (No 38), fizzes with operatic intricacy, No 39 resounds with wonderfully diverse clarinet, but it is the No 40, G Minor, in which Mackerras and the SCO brilliantly contrast bright startling effervescence with deep, dark undertows, and the staggering Jupiter (No 41) that place this among the very best recordings of these four symphonies on disc.