This collection of orchestral works follows on a set of Schubert symphonies by the same forces, likewise recorded live at the Styriarte festival in Graz, Austria. Even with four CDs (albeit for the price of two), this new box featuring works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms has found immediate commercial success. It's not a surprise. These performances fall under the general rubric of those from later in the late conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt's career where he sought to apply the lessons of the historical-performance movement, and specifically his own branch of that movement, to orchestras with conventional instruments. He worked closely for some years with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in this enterprise, and these performances, recorded between 1988 and 2007, are impressive purely in terms of coordination between conductor and orchestra, in music where the musicians are being asked to do quite unconventional things. As for the performances themselves, they show many of Harnoncourt's trademarks. Attacks are explosive; some of the tempos are unusually quick; textures take every chance to display the winds and the brass. It wouldn't be Harnoncourt if there weren't some controversial moves, and the flexible tempos of the slow movement of the Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, certainly fall into that category. Yet, unlike some conductors emerging from the early music movement, Harnoncourt is an enthusiastic and sensitive conductor of Classical-period music. Mozart's "Posthorn" Serenade, K. 320, is ideally suited to Harnoncourt's approach with its varied wind writing, and it's a real pleasure here. The blazing finale of the Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, is another highlight. It's also worth noting that Harnoncourt, however unusual his readings may be at times, does not seek controversy for its own sake. In Brahms, where historical interpretations have less to add, he hews closer to the mainstream. A final attraction is the excellent sound provided by the Austrian radio network ORF; the engineers did well to accept some background noise as they tried to capture the colors of Harnoncourt's orchestra, and the sound is lively and immediate. These performances, never before released, belong in any collection of Harnoncourt's music-making.