The Haydn year in 2009 may have opened the ears of many to some of the hidden gems of the composer’s output and few have done more to this end than Manfred Huss. So hats off to him, his Haydn Sinfonietta and BIS Records for continuing the good fight with this disc of three theatrical symphonies, at least two of which might not often be afforded an airing outside a complete cycle.

The best-known of this group of symphonies is No 60, composed in 1774 “per la Commedia intitolata il Distratto”. The music’s “distractions” – trademarks of Haydn’s style – include fanfare interruptions, motifs that mither around a single chord before being nudged back into reality, rapid changes of mood and, most famously, the orchestra quite forgetting where it is in the finale, retuning, and then carrying on. The six-movement work is assuredly one of Haydn’s oddest; Huss and the HSW major more on its nervous energy than the whimsicality Harnoncourt underlines with the Concentus Musicus (WCJ, 12/90R).

Symphony No 50 started life in 1773 as the prelude to a marionette opera, and found its symphonic form when Haydn added a minuet and finale. No 12 comes from a full decade earlier and was presumably conceived as the opening and incidental music to Acide, in which form it has already been recorded by these musicians (8/09). Galant gestures take primacy over sustained motivic argument but it nevertheless contains shades of nascent Sturm und Drang and provides a piquant E major cushion between the two more thrusting C major works. The coupling is unique, the programming considered and the project a delightful success.