These marvelous performances, now reissued at mid-price, offer simply the last word in how to play Haydn on modern instruments while giving due consideration to period-performance practice. Charles Mackerras opts for lively tempos in the outer movements of both symphonies, gives flowing accounts of the Andantes, and in the minuets steers a clear course between stateliness and the hyperactivity characteristic of so many "authentic instrument" versions. Every important detail of Haydn's colorful orchestration--the charmingly scored "tic-tocks" in the slow movement of the "Clock", the whirlwind string interludes in the "London" Symphony's finale, the vivid writing for trumpets and drums--registers with perfectly natural clarity and balance. Effortless, enjoyable, essential: if you don't own these performances, then you don't know these works as well as you should. [1/17/2003]

--David Hurwitz