Having given us the fleetest, leanest Beethoven modern-instrument symphony cycle on disc, usually with exhilarating results, David Zinman now bids fair to do the same for Schubert. The Unfinished is often viewed as the first great confessional Romantic symphony. Zinman, ever ready to turn tradition on its head, stresses its Classical lineage, outgunning even such period practitioners as Mackerras and Norrington (both Virgin, 2/99, 12/90) in athletic swiftness and textural transparency. The Zurichers’ string sonority is slender without being desiccated, phrasing is crisp and clear-cut, with Schubert’s accents sharply pointed. The first movement, more agitato than moderato, loses something in brooding intensity (none of the familiar broadening, for instance, in the apocalyptic crescendo at the start of the development), but unfolds with compelling logic and dramatic power. With no hint of rubato or dynamic inflection, the cellos’ second theme is arguably too straight and chaste – though in Schubert one person’s poetry is another’s excess of Viennese Gemütlichkeit.

Chaste is also the watchword for the second movement, con moto with a vengeance, with ne’er a backward glance. Despite Zinman’s meticulous observation of Schubert’s pp and ppp dynamics, the coda’s remote, dream-like harmonic shifts do not achieve quite the sense of transcendence I hear in the recordings by Carlos Kleiber and Abbado (both DG, 12/85, 2/89). But Zinman’s songful ease is certainly attractive. Little touches of ornamentation from first clarinet and first oboe – a feature of the conductor’s Beethoven recordings – even add a hint of 18th-century playfulness.

Complementing Zinman’s bracing Unfinished are three relative Schubertian rarities for violin and orchestra from 1816 and 1817: a chic, decidedly Viennese Polonaise and two more substantial pieces that, like so much of Schubert’s music from these years, pay homage to his idol Mozart. To this delightful, unassuming music the Tonhalle’s leader, Andreas Janke, brings a pure, sweet tone, deft phrasing and a crucial skittish innocence of spirit.