I thought Bruggen's recording of Mozart's G minor Symphony No. 40 (Philips CD 416 329-2PH, 7/86) as persuasive as any I have encountered on record since Furtwangler's (HMV DB6997/9, 2/50 --nla), a point which perceptibly raised the studio temperature in December during Radio 3's annual ''Critics' Choice'' for ''Record Review'' not everyone is yet reconciled to the marrying of period instruments with the kind of interpretative sophistication we have from Bruggen. Indeed, SS devoted most of his generally enthusiastic review of the LP of this latest Bruggen release to this subject. There is as SS noted, a world of difference between Hogwood (L'Oiseau-Lyre) and Bruggen, the latter's readings altogether ''more shaped'' and ''more artful in their articulation''. In fact, I think the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century is a better band, working under a musician of greater stature when it comes to playing Mozart to contemporary audiences on period instruments.
Both works are in festive D major and in both Bruggen allies moderate tempos in the outer movements to wonderfully articulate instrumental detailing. (Technically the playing—string playing, intonation, etc—is of a very high order.) The sound Bruggen draws from his 40 or so players is full-bodied and dark, but it has a notable textural transparency in the slow movements; qualities magnificently served by the digital recording in its new CD format. Throughout, the performances exude a sense of confident nobility, touched in something like the first movement development of the Haffner Symphony, by a sense of deeper pre-occupations lying just beneath the music's surface. I could have done without a rather obvious edit at bar 116 of the finale of the Paris Symphony; otherwise I have nothing but praise for the record. Bruggen is a superb conductor who rarely puts a foot wrong; as such his records are a good deal more interesting than those of half a dozen aspiring maestros on the international circuit to whom the classic repertoire is currently being entrusted.'