For today’s musicologists, performers and concert-going audiences, Mozart’s final symphonies are still a veritable miracle. Why they were written remains a mystery, and no-one knows whether Mozart ever heard them performed during his lifetime.

The symphonies in G minor, K550 (no.40), and C major, K551 (no.41, also known as the “Jupiter”) are the ones that most represent Mozart’s symphonic legacy to later generations of musicians. As early as 1800, the popular “Great” G minor Symphony was praised as the “painting of a passion-stricken soul”. Like its big sister, the “Jupiter” Symphony in C major, it numbers among the most-played works in classical music and has been immortalized in countless recordings. Nevertheless, these symphonies – probably the most profound ones before Beethoven – reveal themselves as something quite new in every interpretation. “Mozart placed all the dark sides of human existence into his G minor Symphony,” says Herbert Blomstedt, adding that its “passion” continues to fascinate him.

The eminent Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt, a close associate and regular guest conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, conducted the G minor Symphony in concerts on 31 January and 1 February 2013, and the “Jupiter” Symphony on 21 and 22 December 2017 in the Herkulessaal of Munich’s Residenz. The new CD from BR-KLASSIK now presents these two great cornerstones of Mozart's symphonic oeuvre – in the very best sound quality.