Freiburger Barockorchester, René Jacobs - Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 38 'Prague' & 41 'Jupiter' (2007)

Renowned for his work in Baroque vocal music, René Jacobs is most frequently credited as a countertenor and as a choral director. He is somewhat less familiar as a conductor of Classical symphonic music, though he has increasingly delved into this repertoire in recordings with one of Europe's best early music groups, the Freiburger Barockorchester. This 2007 release from Harmonia Mundi features Jacobs and the orchestra in bright and finely detailed performances of two of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's late symphonies, the Symphony No. 38 in D major, K. 504, "Prague," and the Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551, "Jupiter." Going by the theory that the composer always intended his music to be transparent in texture, sharply defined in rhythm, brisk in tempo, and dramatically characterized, these readings are as authentic as a Mozartian could wish; the distinctive sonorities of the small-scaled orchestra are as polished and luminous as any buff of period practice could desire. Hearing these meticulous performances makes one wish for more Classical recordings from this conductor and ensemble, to have a more comprehensive representation of Mozart's symphonies, as well as to augment a single disc of Haydn's symphonies, which was released in 2004. Harmonia Mundi's audio quality is first-rate, and the extraordinarily wide dynamic range of this chamber orchestra is faithfully reproduced.