The first point to note is how much more comprehensive this is than previous cycles, even the outstanding RCA set of period performances from Roy Goodman and the Hanover Band.
Gardiner offers both versions of Symphony No 4, 1841 and 1851, and his performances of them are very well geared to bringing out the contrasts.
Still more fascinating is the inclusion of both the early, incomplete Symphony in G minor, and the Konzertstück of 1849 for four horns, with the ORR soloists breathtaking in their virtuosity in the outer movements, using horns with rotary valves crooked in F. Otherwise, except in three specified movements, natural horns are used, braying clearly through orchestration which always used to be condemned as too thick. In his note, Gardiner fairly points out the merits of the 1841 version in transparency and other qualities, suggesting, as others have, that the doublings in the later version make it safer and more commonplace. Paradoxically in performance, Gardiner is if anything even more electrifying in the later, more thickly upholstered version, as ever clarifying textures and building up to a thrilling conclusion. Even the Zwickauer Symphony of 1832 emerges as very distinctive of Schumann.
The contrasts between Gardiner and Goodman in their approach to the numbered works aren't as marked as expected, often as much a question of scale and recording quality as of interpretative differences, with Goodman's orchestra more intimate, and with the RCA sound a degree less brightly analytical. Both prefer fast speeds, with Goodman a shade more relaxed and Gardiner more incisive, pressing ahead harder, with syncopations – so important in Schumann – more sharply dramatic. One advantage that Gardiner has in his slightly bigger scale is that he brings out more light and shade, offering a wider dynamic range. Hence the solemn fourth movement of the Rhenish Symphony inspired by Cologne Cathedral – as with Goodman taken at a flowing speed – builds up more gradually in a bigger, far longer crescendo, in the end the more powerful for being held back at the start. Though the Goodman set still holds its place, Gardiner offers a conspectus of Schumann as symphonist that's all the richer and more illuminating for the inclusion of the extra rarities.

Gardiner offers the most revelatory insights of all and includes not just the four regular symphonies but a complete survey of Schumann as symphonist. He seeks specifically to explode the myth that Schumann was a poor orchestrator.