Weber’s only symphonies were knocked off at great speed – with quasi-Mozartian fluency of melody, orchestration and pulse (and a little Mozartian borrowing at the start of Op 19) – for an Eszterháza-like oboe-playing patron in just over a month at the turn of the year 1806. Their use of dance- and opera-like fragments within each movement can make each symphony feel (delightfully) like a suite of overtures. Academics may sniff at such an apparent lack of structure but the works’ musical argument and pace should be the delight of anyone who enjoys these ‘Classical’ scores poised on the cusp of full-blown Romanticism – like Schubert’s Symphony No 3 with its distinctive oboe lead-in to the first Allegro. Neither of Weber’s symphonies is long or calls for unusual or commercially unviable resources. Yet neither has really yet entered the concert hall or recorded repertoire, probably because the music has had no prominent champion since Erich Kleiber (Decca and others have a Cologne radio recording of Op 19). But, in the current wave of what appears to be a mini-Weber revival, the present performances – superbly prepared, played and recorded – could help to change that.

Mena immediately sounds like a natural Weberian who, together with his smart horns and timpanist, has absorbed enough of historic-instrument practice to spare the music the false-sounding weighty Viennese classicism that used to be inflicted on many early-19th-century scores. A similar authentic spring informs the Berlioz Invitation transcription while Geoghegan repeats with aplomb her familiar traversal of the Concerto. A winner.