We reported here two years ago on the Andalusian conductor’s remarkable work with the Friborg Baroque Orchestra in Beethoven. The musician has a long-term relationship with this formation founded in 1987 by Thomas Hengelbrock and now under the rule of violinist Gottfried von der Goltz.

The qualifier “baroque” orchestra should not be overshadowed: the phalanx, which plays on old instruments, does not hesitate to make frequent incursions in the middle of romanticism, in particular with Mendelssohn, of which it recently engraved the integral symphonies with Heras-Casado.

The Schubert disc, recorded in the fall of 2021 at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, is the logical continuation of that of Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 produced with the same partners in 2013, still for Harmonia Mundi. We are dealing with a tonic Schubert, without concession, with an orchestral relief in technicolor.

One may not adhere to this hardline approach and prefer the smoother Schuberts of Abbado, for example, but this over-energized Harnoncourt has the great quality of never boring the listener.

This can be heard from the first notes of the opening movement of Symphony No. 5, taken at full speed. The Spaniard, as at ease in the romantic repertoire as in the modern, also knows how to stretch the sauce when necessary, as in the first movement of Symphony No. 8 – also known as Symphony No. 7 –, dramatic without being hysterical.

We can’t wait for the Ninth!