Like the Transit of Venus or mild ale, final instalments of Haydn symphony cycles appear infrequently, which makes them worthy of special celebration. Complete sets with a consistent personnel roster can be counted on the fingers of one hand – Maerzendorfer (now on Scribendum, 8/19), Dorati (Decca), Adám Fischer (Nimbus), Dennis Russell Davies (Sony, 1/10) – alongside a sprinkling of composite sets and a number of valiant efforts that faltered due to conductor deaths or (more commonly) the withdrawal of record company funding. Indeed, this survey, inaugurated in 1999 and now completed quarter of a century on, nearly foundered following a horrifying accident that incapacitated its originator, Thomas Fey.

Thankfully, the good folk at Hänssler Classic kept the faith and supported the Heidelberg Symphony as they installed first their leader, Benjamin Spillner, then the German conductor Johannes Klumpp to continue Fey’s work, maintaining the style and standards he had set as far as Vol 22 (11/14). The most popular and best-known works having all been recorded earlier in the series, this finale seems a slightly motley selection, featuring some of the least celebrated of the symphonies – although, as any Haydnista knows, there are always riches to be found.

The ‘big piece’ is Symphony No 91 (1788), which displays all the virtues of this cycle: the steely glint of the strings, replete with slashing staccatos and swingeing sforzandos, robust brass (you can’t miss the horns in the Trio) and woodwinds with bags of personality, not least the bassoon in the Andante’s variations. Tempos throughout the set are nearly all on the sprightly side, bringing out all the nervous energy on which Haydn’s music is borne along, and players are encouraged to play out, bringing a compelling intensity especially to slow movements. Largely absent, though, are some of the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities that characterised earlier recordings in the cycle – labouring Haydn’s teases, for example, padding out brass and timpani parts or playing fast (or slow) and loose with tempo manipulations. Richard Wigmore was the first but not the last to describe in these pages some of Fey’s wilful augmentations of the scores as ‘compelling and infuriating by turns’ (1/08). So, while few of the works here remain ‘unadorned’ – see the patches of spiccato and col legno in No 80’s Minuet, for example – Klumpp’s tweaks seem always considered and for the most part undistracting.

This leads to persuasive performances of all 11 symphonies, mostly numbered in the 60s, 70s and early 80s and presented here in (roughly) numerical and (roughly) chronological order. No 76 in E flat was a favourite of Günter Wand’s and deserves greater recognition for its clear influence on Mozart’s Symphony No 39 in the same key. No 62 in D, which also caught Mozart’s attention, is made up of theatrical offcuts that coalesce into something weird and wonderful; odder still is No 80 in D minor, which devolves from its shock-and-awe opening – played with maximum fervour here – to a gawky Ländler second subject, and closes with a finale full of Haydn’s wrongfooting rhythmic games. Nos 77, 79 and 81 are more demure but no less full of wit and colour, to which the Heidelbergers respond wholeheartedly. As throughout the cycle, the corporate virtuosity of these players pays dividends, especially in quicksilver finales such as those of Nos 66 or 74. There is expressive beauty, too, in the muted-string Adagio of No 66, for example, which is nevertheless soon undercut by a rustic Minuet, or in the poignantly affecting variations of No 71’s slow movement.

In short, the virtues that have marked out the Hänssler cycle are on full display once again, with less finickety fooling with the score than in some earlier volumes. Those who have followed Fey, Spillner and Klumpp this far will not hesitate; others will prefer the period-instrument cycle conducted by Giovanni Antonini on Alpha, currently around halfway through and due to be completed in the composer’s tercentenary year, now just seven years hence. True Haydnistas will need both sets on their increasingly packed shelves, for the booklet insights from both conductors as much as for their vivid and vivacious music-making. A 36-disc box-set of the complete Heidelberg cycle is also imminent from Hänssler. Happy listening!