Schubert: Symphony 9 / Haydn: Symphony 88

The Schubert retains its own unique charisma, with surprisingly dynamic sound, superb playing and a mastery of musical transition that is all the more remarkable for accommodating some alarming interpretative extremes - in the first movement's accelerating shift from Andante to Allegro ma non troppo, for example. As to the fill-up, this particular recording of Haydn's Symphony No. 88 is a regular 'test' case for generalized comparisons between Furtwangler and Toscanini, most specifically the maestro's drily recorded, keenly inflected and ruthlessly brilliant of the same symphony. The Largo is a popular point of reference, with Toscanini broad and darkly Beethovenian, and Furtwangler providing a mobile, humble, almost pious alternative.