John Eliot Gardiner, as the detailed listing above shows, took his pilgrimage through the late Mozart symphonies more or less in chronological order over a span of six years. The first disc contains appealing performances of Nos. 29 and 33, the former particularly lyrical and shapely, with an eloquent account of the Andante, the latter distinguished for its refinement of line and the properly spirited opening movement. Then comes the Paris, No. 31, a piece designed to show off a virtuoso orchestra, which it duly does in this alert and shapely reading, coupled with No. 34, another large-scale piece, in which Gardiner again provides a specially graceful slow movement.
I found myself a shade less excited by his readings of the Haffner and the Linz: plenty of breadth and grandeur, but otherwise rather lightly characterized, and less fun than perhaps they ought to be. The great final symphonies, however, receive what are generally magisterial readings. In No. 38, the Prague, Gardiner is again possibly more concerned, I feel, with classical grandeur than with strong characterization of the ideas, and I slightly regret that; in No. 39 his Andante is rather slower than Mozart's con moto seems to imply and the finale is sturdy rather than sparkling.
The G minor is possibly the outstanding achievement of the set: the first movement performed with great drive and spaciousness, the second shapely and intense in expression, the finale done with immense vitality, the strings' arpeggios leaping vividly through the texture. The Jupiter is almost equally splendid, if to my mind slightly flawed by some piano effects in the first movement tuttis (this happens too in No. 39) where they do not belong, but the crowning glory, the finale, contains many thrilling things.
In all, this is probably the version to choose, under any single conductor, of these symphonies on period instruments—indeed perhaps on any instruments.'