When I started collecting recordings of the Schubert symphonies‚ it was only the Unfinished and the Great C major which commanded real attention. It was here that the heavyweights slugged it out. Recordings of the first six symphonies were harder to come by‚ though the best were very good indeed: Maazel in the Fourth‚ Beecham in the other five. In the late 1960s complete cycles began appearing from unexpected sources‚ not unlike the one we have here from members of the Danish Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and Hans Graf‚ former director of Salzburg’s Mozarteum Orchestra. Menuhin recorded the symphonies with the Bath Festival Orchestra (EMI‚ now available on CD) and there was a fascinating set on RCA (9/66 – nla) by The Naples Orchestra under Denis Vaughan (Beecham’s assistant at the RPO and Gui’s at Glyndebourne). But still the divide remained. Established symphony orchestras often made heavy weather of the earlier works; chamber orchestras did wonderful things in the earlier works but usually knocked over the penultimate hurdle and fell at the last. The new set is unique in my experiencein managing to get the worst of both worlds. The orchestra is too big‚ the style too hefty‚the woodwinds too recessed‚ the recordingtoo roomy and dark­browed‚ to give sustained pleasure in the early symphonies‚ yet thereare few compensations in the Unfinished and Great C major where the orchestra is oftenout of its depth‚ skimping note values on the horizontal plane‚ lacking harmonic depth onthe vertical. The set comes as a five­CD box‚ though the format – one CD plus two twofers – looks ripe for breaking up by dealers. Not that this greatly improves the situation. I liked Graf’s reading of the Third Symphony and he catches better than some the angst­ridden character of the outer movements of the Fourth but the couplings on this two­CD pack are unsatisfactory. The Fifth is quickly‚ charmlessly done‚ with a trussed up slow movement‚ and the performance of the Sixth has some of the same failings as that of the Ninth. The single disc is given over to the first two symphonies but even this makes a poor sampler. I put on the old Vaughan recording of the Second. It has its rough edges but the style and relish of the playing and the intimate‚ beautifully focussed recording put the newer‚ blander effort to shame. Curiously‚ the youthful overtures – blandly‚ occasionally rather brutally played – are added to the final two­disc set. With Böhm’s superb Berlin cycle recently reissued as a four­CD budget­price box‚ the present set is uncompetitive.