It always astonishes me that Haydn had to write 96 symphonies before one of them was christened the “Miracle”. There are plenty of candidates in the preceding 95 for the epithet and No 88 is doubtless one of them. No 60 though, Il Distratto, were it not already handily thus monickered, might well be in line to be dubbed the “Decidedly Odd”. It’s a six-movement work compiled from incidental music for a play, Der Zerstreute (a translation of Regnard’s Le Distrait), revived at Eszterháza in 1774. The music’s “distractions” include getting bogged down around a single note in the opening movement and the orchestra quite forgetting where they are in the finale, breaking off andre-tuning before carrying on. An odd creation it assuredly is and Ivor Bolton and the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra perform it vivaciously if a touch “straight”; for this theatrical music with a strong whiff of greasepaint, turn to Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Vienna Concentus Musicus.

Likewise, in lithe, dapper performances of the two miraculous later works, the Salzburg players don’t have a hair out of place. Strings are more prominent than winds in the sound picture but hard sticks thwack joyously against timpani and trumpets sound a minatory note. If this coupling appeals, I can think of no reason to hesitate. Nevertheless, my most revelatory experience in No 88 came in Fritz Reiner’s 1960 Chicago recording, now available on Testament, while for the Miracle itself – and indeed for all 12 “London” Symphonies – Colin Davis and the Concertgebouw Orchestra offer performances of such a touching humanity and fundamental “rightness” that they might not be surpassed for years to come.