David Zinman and his expert band give predictably athletic, tightly disciplined performances of two contrasting early Schubert symphonies: the blithe, compact Third – the teenage composer at his most Haydnesque – and the more ambitious, far-reaching if hardly ‘tragic’ Fourth, inspired by Beethoven’s trenchant C minor vein in works such as the Third Piano Concerto and String Quartet Op 18 No 4. With sparing string vibrato, crisp, no-nonsense tempi and valveless trumpets and horns, the performances have a period feel, though timpani are often unduly muffled. Taking note of Schubert’s maestoso marking, Zinman stresses the portentousness of No 3’s slow introduction, ratcheting up the tension until the mood is ironically punctured by the clarinet’s jaunty Allegro theme. If some other conductors, including the inimitable Beecham (EMI) and Abbado (DG), conjure more pointed phrasing and a more gamesome spirit in the Allegro, Zinman’s coursing vitality is always exhilarating. I enjoyed, too, the bucolic clarinet solo at the centre of the dapper Allegretto second movement, the lilt Zinman brings to the rustic waltz Trio and the cheeky, conspiratorial woodwind in the tarantella finale.

Zinman’s Tragic also impresses with its mingled textural transparency, precision and energy: say, in the punchy cross rhythms of the Minuet-Scherzo and the sheer gusto of the finale, where details like the little leaping figures for flute, oboe and bassoon at the end of the exposition emerge with perfect clarity. Typically, and more controversially, Zinman encourages the oboe to add little touches of ornamentation in the repeat of the Andante’s main theme. As in his recent Unfinished (6/12), Zinman’s direct, ‘objective’ approach, with minimal flexing of the pulse, stresses the movement’s Classical lineage over its subjective Romantic poetry. At rather broader, more pliant tempo, Abbado and the COE phrase the opening string theme more tenderly and find more mystery in the sequences of remote modulations.

Distilling quasi-period sonorities from a modern-instrument orchestra, Roger Norrington’s Tragic is in some ways similarly conceived, though the Stuttgarters’ sonorities are leaner still, the articulation crisper and more detached. Trumpets rasp through the texture at climactic moments and timpani, played with hard wooden sticks, detonate like gunfire. Norrington’s phrasing tends to be more detailed than Zinman’s. Occasionally there’s a whiff of micro-management. But there are many rewards: in the first movement’s main theme, for instance, more meticulous attention to Schubert’s hairpin crescendos and diminuendos enhances the music’s quivering, agitato feel, while the Minuet’s Trio is that much perkier. The Andante is a notch swifter even than Zinman’s, though more flexible in pulse, with pianissimo playing of chaste delicacy and a romantic easing of the tempo in the musing coda.

In the ever-enchanting Fifth, homage to Schubert’s beloved Mozart, Norrington’s manner is a shade more genial and relaxed than in his bracing period-instrument version from the London Classical Players (EMI, 12/90). The outer movements are delightfully buoyant, with the woodwind relishing their Mozartian sallies and dialogues. I don’t care for the artful shading away of the stomping repeated-note figure in the Minuet. But Norrington distils a touching wistfulness in the pastoral Trio, while the Andante combines a mobile tempo – truly con moto – with affectionate phrasing. As in his earlier recording, he quickens the pulse, effectively, for the restless modulating episodes. For all his occasional idiosyncrasies, Norrington’s freshness and imagination in Schubert are always compelling. If your taste is for period-style performances, this coupling, brilliantly played and finely recorded, has no rivals.