It’s often said (with just cause) that the spirit of Mozart hovers over the 18-year-old Schubert’s Fifth Symphony. Not only in the effortless songfulness of much of the work, nor the Scherzo, which blatantly takes as its text the equivalent movement of Mozart’s late G minor Symphony, K551, but especially in the quicksilver turns from sunny major to troubled minor, a trait Schubert learnt from the Salzburger and made an integral part of his own language as he and his music grew more mature.

It’s just as clear that the guiding hand behind the Second Symphony, begun a couple of years before the Fifth, is early Beethoven. This work has trumpets, drums, clarinets and a second flute, which the later symphony goes without; and, accordingly, the sound world is more majestic, the outer movements plotted on a bigger scale. With this pairing, Philippe Herreweghe completes his cycle of the symphonies with the orchestra formerly known as the Royal Flemish Philharmonic; Nos 6, 8 and 9 are on Pentatone, the remaining earlier works, like this disc, on his own label (2/16).

The spotlight is very much on the wind instruments here, to the extent in the Second that the strings sound slightly recessed; this matter is resolved when the microphones home in on the smaller orchestra of the Fifth. Herreweghe maintains focus throughout the music, refusing to allow the Second’s motivic working to sink into prolixity. His wind soloists make a lovely sound and the rest of the orchestra is clearly well-drilled and alert. The Fifth is, of course, one of the most cherishable of all symphonies and is finely served by these Belgian forces. The Second, too, is well worth hearing once in a while and there can be few better places to start than here.