The catalogue numbers may suggest otherwise, but this disc gathers the four earliest known symphonies by the young Mozart, along with one from a little later. The 19th-century complete edition of his works, compiled by Breitkopf & Härtel, numbered the symphonies up to No 41 but subsequent scholarly wrangling has discounted some and discovered others – which is, for example, the reason we often hear Symphonies Nos 36 and 38 but never No 37, which turns out to be by Michael Haydn, with only the slow introduction a later addition by Mozart.

Thus Symphony No 1, K16, is commonly accepted as Mozart’s First Symphony, although there are reasons to suggest that there was a still earlier work, now lost. (No 2, K17, is now attributed more firmly to Mozart père while No 3, K18, is a copy by the boy of a symphony by CF Abel.) No 4, K19, was written shortly after K16 in London, with K19a following a few months later in Holland; its owes its lack of a B&H number to the fact that the complete score was only discovered as recently as the 1980s. No 5, K22, comes from The Hague at the end of 1765 and the Alte Lambach from the following year.

They come around on disc fairly regularly – more so than comparable works by Haydn – but rarely played with such élan as here. The Freiburgers make the now classic period-instrument set by the Academy of Ancient Music (L’Oiseau-Lyre) sound pale in comparision: a testament to the advances over the past three or four decades in the marshalling of recalcitrant ‘ancient’ instruments.

When treated with such seriousness of intent, these works reveal the astonishing speed with which Mozart, even before his 10th birthday, was able to absorb prevailing trends and write with style, taste and an unerring ear for effect: some of the slow movements, especially, display a depth and sensitivity that eluded composers four or five times his age in the 1760s. Horns and oboes give colour and contour to the music, while a continuo harpsichord is fairly prominent. The symphonies are punctuated with five contredanses Mozart composed for noble entertainments at the other end of his short life – a juxtaposition that seems surprisingly natural. The only criticism to be made is that the statue depicted in the cover art is a Ukrainian example rather than the one in Orange Square in Chelsea, just a short walk away from the house in Ebury Street where Mozart composed his first symphonies.