Harnoncourt, like Stefano Mollo for Abbado, has researched Schubert's own 
manuscripts, and noted that many unauthentic amendments have found their way 
into the printed editions of the symphonies. Some of Harnoncourt's corrections 
are already familiar from the Abbado set, such as the removal of the eight bars 
later added to the Fourth Symphony's first movement exposition; but the 
differences between Harnoncourt's 'findings' and Mollo's are puzzling 
(Harnoncourt does not incorporate Abbado's corrections in the slow movement and 
Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony). A few of Harnoncourt's corrections are listed in 
his booklet, though nowhere near as many as appear in DG's notes for Abbado, 
which is a pity: it would be helpful to know whether the sources of the many 
startling moments in Harnoncourt's cycle are textual or interpretative; for 
instance, is the Ninth Symphony's last chord, here extended with a long 
diminuendo, Schubert or Harnoncourt?

That dying away of Schubert's last symphonic sound is a surprising conclusion 
for a finale - unlike Abbado's, a whirling, spinning vivace - borne aloft on 
astonishingly precise articulation of its rhythms and accents, and a springy 
delivery of the triplets. Characteristics, of course, one has come to expect 
from an Harnoncourt performance. Still, what a joy to hear this Allegro, and 
those of most of the earlier symphonies, seized with such bright and light-toned 
enthusiasm. Here is urgent, virile and vehement playing, never over-forceful, 
over-emphatic or burdened with excessive weight. What came as a surprise was the 
consistent drawing out of these scores' potential for sadness and restlessness. 
Harnoncourt does not set apart the first six symphonies as merely diverting 
(out-and-out charm is seldom part of Harnoncourt's Schubertian vocabulary): 
their bittersweet ambiguities and apparent affectations of anxiety here acquire 
a greater significance, and the cycle, as a whole, a greater continuity.

Up to a point, the darker, more serious Schubert that emerges here, derives from 
the type of sound Harnoncourt fashions from his orchestra; not least, the lean 
string tone and incisive brass. And maybe, up to a point, from the corrections: 
Harnoncourt refers to the manuscripts as often being ''harsher and more abrupt 
in tone [than the printed editions], juxtaposing extreme dynamic contrasts'', 
though you can't help feeling that contrasts in general have been given a 
helping hand. Trios are mostly much slower than the urgent minuets/scherzos that 
frame them (with pauses in between the two). And Schubert's less vigorous 
moments are very noticeable as such, and are inflected with varying degrees of 
melancholy - it is uncanny how the string playing, in particular, often suggests 
a feeling of isolation (along with the sparing vibrato is an equally sparing use 
of that enlivening facility: staccato). Even the Second Symphony's perky Trio 
where, incidentally, Harnoncourt has woodwind turns not trills, seems tinged 
with a certain regret. Abbado's players sound a great deal more game. As they do 
in the finale of the Sixth Symphony; the only movement where Harnoncourt's 
approach is ruthlessly extreme: this begins as a deadpan moderato (the marking 
is Allegro moderato), and as levels rise, so, sharply, does the tempo; if 
Schubert intended this movement as a tribute to Rossini, here it seems a rather 
blatant satire.

Tovey's comment on the Fifth Symphony - ''like a delightful child overawed into 
perfect behaviour... by sheer delight in giving pleasure'' - here seems very 
wide of the mark. Norrington, before Harnoncourt, demonstrated this apparently 
sunny symphony's capacity for a driven Sturm und Drang restlessness; 
Harnoncourt's is considerably less driven, but Harnoncourt's 'child' is 
reluctant to join in: the high flute at the vigorous end of the first movement's 
first subject could almost be a cry for help. As for the finale's second theme 
''running along merrily'' (Tovey), I'm tempted to observe that it's partially 
lamed by Harnoncourt's preceding stinging fortissimos; the music's minor-key 
episodes taking their toll on the attempts at merriment as the movement 
progresses to its hardly convincing major-key conclusion. And why not? 
Significantly, Schubert marks only a single forte at the finish.

The Unfinished Symphony's first movement is a stark, harrowing experience (yet 
it remains a well-tempered musical one: gestures are never exaggerated); the 
opening is as cold as the grave itself; the second subject knows its song is 
short-lived (curiously, the transition to the second subject seems to have shed 
a bar, and the last two bars of that cello theme start with quavers, not 
crotchets). In both movements, the elucidation and balance of texture can only 
be described as masterly: just listen to the trombones casting shadows in both 
codas.

This, then, is as seriously pondered, coherent and penetrating a view of the 
complete cycle as we have had. Whether or not you feel Harnoncourt focuses too 
much on Schubert's darker side (a feature I have probably overstated in this 
review), you have to marvel at his ability to realize his vision. And if this 
great orchestra were not convinced by that vision, I doubt that it would have 
co-operated as wholeheartedly. The recorded sound offers that inimitable 
Concertgebouw blend of the utmost clarity and wide open spaces. Abbado's set 
walked away with a 1989 Gramophone Award; had Harnoncourt's set been available 
at the same time, then...

  --John Steane