‘The Surprise’ might seem a superfluous title for a programme of Haydn symphonies. But these three works do each contain extreme examples of the composer’s delight in wrong-footing his listeners: most blatantly in No 94’s big bang, of course, but also in the keyboard solo (harpsichord rather than fortepiano here) that sails in out of the blue near the end of No 98 and, most outrageously, in the ‘clap-if-you-dare’ false ending in the finale of No 90. In the latter, Giovanni Antonini times Haydn’s four-bar rest strictly and conjures a conspiratorial pianissimo when the strings re-enter in an alien key while almost imperceptibly flexing the tempo. He flexes it slightly more on the crucial repeat. Yet here and elsewhere Antonini understands that Haydn’s mischief works best without specious tweaking or underlining.

For these symphonies written for Paris (No 90) and London, Antonini combines players from his two orchestras to create a band of around 40, roughly replicating Salomon’s forces in London. With uninhibited natural horns (pitched high in Nos 90 and 98) and trumpets, and timpani played with hard wooden sticks, Antonini is the man to remind us that Haydn was branded a ‘noisy’ composer. As ever in this series, he and the Alpha engineers reveal a scrupulous ear for balance. Independent woodwind lines in the tuttis are clearly audible. Flutes, oboes and bassoons add a pungent rhythmic kick to the violins’ moto perpetuo in the finale of No 94. With varied and precise string articulation, phrases always ‘speak’. Typically, Antonini shapes lower string lines as attentively as he does the violins. Yet phrasing invariably sounds natural.

As do the conductor’s tempo choices. I like the space he gives to No 98’s magnificent opening movement, whose central contrapuntal imbroglio unfolds with thrilling cumulative power. The finales of Nos 90 and 94, too, are lively without being harried, allowing inner detail to register more clearly than usual. Antonini hits on an ideal ‘walking’ tempo for the Andantes of Nos 90 and 94, with their delicately etched woodwind-writing, while No 98’s hymnlike Adagio combines a flowing pace and tender, songful phrasing. After the disturbing central climax, fortissimo horns to the fore, the healing cello solo (3'07") is as eloquent as you could wish.

As anyone who knows Antonini’s Haydn will guess, minuets are fast and punchy, longer on vigour than elegance. Those in Nos 94 and 98 become lusty rustic waltzes, as Haydn may have intended. And what the Minuet of No 90 loses in ancien régime poise, it gains in stomping energy.

With consistently alert, finely nuanced playing from the period forces (including superb wind principals), this latest addition to Antonini’s Haydn odyssey is self-recommending. As an encore we have a spruce performance of the overture to Rossini’s early comedy The Silken Ladder, replete with facetiously chattering woodwind – a reminder both that the Italian was a great Haydn lover and that moments in the finale of No 98 could have fast-talked their way straight out of The Barber of Seville.