Mozart: Les trois dernières symphonies

Aged 32, Mozart completed his three final symphonies in the space of a few months. Each is a musical miracle—operatic in scope, bursting with the composer’s most memorable tunes and beautiful in its lightly worn complexity. Stylistically, they nudge music ever closer to the Romantic era of Beethoven, with strong emotions and variety of orchestral colour. Ensemble Appassionato, made up of some of France’s best chamber musicians, approach them with this sense of theatre, each phrase finely wrought and articulated. The tragic first movement to Symphony No. 40 has an inexorable drive, its Andante beautifully moulded. The final, spectacular movement of the incredible “Jupiter” is pure adrenalin.