This comes as a welcome reminder of the quality of Erich Kleiber's music-making. He was a brilliant and powerful conductor, also one with a strong lyrical impulse; so much is shown in the beautiful performance of Mozart's Symphony No. 39. The first movement is superbly controlled structurally, yet all flows easily and naturally; and the finale has a pace and a twinkle that are irresistible. Weber's Symphony has seldom had a more convincing advocate, in my experience; and it needs conviction. It is a work filled with invention and yet never really coming together as a major symphony: Kleiber understands exactly the dark, romantic manner and can connect some disparate moments with passionate insistence that they do in fact belong as part of a single musical experience. Hearing this splendid performance again is to be reminded not only of Kleiber's greatness as a conductor but—which so honest a musician would have greatly preferred—of the quality of a neglected and misunderstood work.'