Justin Heinrich Knecht’s five-movement Portrait musical de la Nature, ou Grande Simphonie (1783) begins with an evocation of Arcadian bliss (complete with chirping birds and a warbling brook), whips up a torrential storm and concludes with a paean of thanksgiving. Sound familiar? There’s actually no definitive evidence that Beethoven knew Knecht’s work, although it seems likely he did given how closely it prefigures the Pastoral Symphony’s scheme. The similarity is entirely superficial, however. Knecht’s Portrait is hardly a symphony at all, in the formal sense, and more a procession of images and episodes accomplished with little harmonic tension or thematic development.

The music does have its charms, particularly in the outer movements (I find the central storm overlong and disconcertingly cheerful). The theme-and variations finale is perhaps the most coherent, and even offers a few surprises – note the quotation (or is it a coincidental conjuring?) of the opening chorus from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at 1'24". There’s not much to choose in terms of character and finesse between this performance by the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (directed from the leader’s chair by Bernhard Forck) and the 1997 premiere recording by the Hofkapelle Stuttgart under Frieder Bernius. The latter is part of an all-Knecht programme; this new disc sets Knecht and Beethoven’s symphonies side by side.

The Berliners’ Pastoral starts strongly. I like the sense of quiet, heart-racing joy they convey in the first movement, and their sensitive phrasing in the Scene by the Brook. The ensemble’s exceptionally diaphanous sound reveals a lot of fine detail, even if the winds occasionally swamp the strings (of which there are but 21). I certainly want greater weight in the Thunderstorm, but at the same time I find the playing heavy-handed. The finale is similarly prosaic. Worth hearing for the Knecht, certainly, although Bernius gives us a fuller picture of the little-known Rhenish composer.