‘Minasi’s Mozart never smiles’, wrote Richard Wigmore of the Italian conductor’s previous exploration of the symphonies (5/20) – two discs containing the summative trilogy, Nos 39‑41 of 1788. Now, with his German band, Minasi goes back in time to the previous two symphonies, both written for performance away from his Viennese home: No 36, dashed off ‘at breakneck speed’, he reported, during a stop-off in Linz in October 1783 on the way back from Salzburg; and No 38, launched to great acclaim in Prague during a visit in January 1787. (Of Symphony No 37, only the slow introduction is by Mozart, the rest by Michael Haydn.) The evolution is audible, from the Linz, the work of a still-young composer out to impress with his compositional flair and ear for effect, the Prague a far weightier proposition despite being in three rather than four movements, Bachian counterpoint becoming an overriding concern in music that nevertheless goes all out to entertain.

So why no smiles? RW identified the ‘raucous, even aggressive exuberance’ of the finale of Symphony No 39 and that’s very much the order of the day here, certainly in the faster music. These are assertive performances and then some, woodwinds wailing against abrasive strings, horns dominating the middle of the texture, trumpets topping off the sound picture with a steely glint. Also reprised from the previous volume is Minasi’s interventionist approach to tempo, with marked pullbacks not only as second subjects and recapitulations approach but also within harmonically more static passages. If you’re not put off by the fey phrase-endings as the Linz’s Allegro gets under way, then there are the minute pauses placed between paragraphs that impede flow in slow movements. The finale of the Prague has so many sudden ruptures in the basic tempo that any excitement and intensity that has been built up is squandered in an instant.

No, for Mozart with a smile, and with the excitement of a fully lived-in interpretation that makes all its points without exaggeration or manipulation, Charles Mackerras’s Scottish survey of the late symphonies is a better bet. The approach is similar, deploying modern instruments with period playing styles (and likewise taking all the repeats), but this miraculous music unfolds with a greater degree of naturalness alongside palpable joy and affection.