Album: Mozart, The Last Symphonies: Orchestre des Champs-Elysées/Herreweghe phi

Something very exciting happens in Philippe Herreweghe’s recording of Mozart’s last three symphonies.

As the flutes curl upwards from the icy haze of strings in the opening of Symphony No 39, it seems as though we have tipped forward into a new century – the pull towards Romanticism has begun. Herreweghe’s Beethovenian approach creates a crackling tension as classical conventions are broken and rebuilt. Immaculate, breathtaking and startling.