When I was Program Manager at 2MBS FM, during their first year of transmission in 1975, we started the weekend with a Haydn symphony: first up in the Saturday morning slot, a different one every week. Haydn wrote 104 symphonies, so we could go for two years without repeating ourselves.

That year happened to coincide with the first major-label survey, released piecemeal over the preceding two years. The recordings featured a band of Hungarian refugees who had escaped the Communist takeover in 1955 and fled to Vienna. They had come from the radio, opera, and symphony orchestras of Budapest to form the Philharmonia Hungarica. The conductor was another Hungarian, Antal Doráti, who had made dozens of records for Mercury in Minneapolis and London.

Antal Doráti. Portrait supplied

On this project, Doráti really had to get his act together. They didn’t record the symphonies in order, but taped groups of slow movements together, then minuet movements at other sessions, saving money by not paying musicians they wouldn’t need. The standard of performance was immensely high and concentration at its peak. Only one symphony didn’t pass muster, and had to be re-recorded...