Did Joseph II say to Mozart ‘There are simply too many notes’? Or was this dramatic licence from Peter Schaffer? Either way, unenterprising performances give that impression. Alesssio Bax feels differently. From the first movement of K491, passagework is shaped and graded never to sound ‘notey’. Ditto his apposite cadenza. And sombre hues predominate, beginning with the orchestral framework, violins separated, set by Simon Over, bassoons defined but brass and timpani a trace subdued. Passions are temperate rather than fiery. Lyrical too in the Larghetto, though Bax doesn’t smooth out edges; nor does Over, stressing differences in colour as in the C minor and A flat wind interludes. Such care over detail and absence of meretricious display extend to the finale, spill over into the solo Variations (though only two are believed to be genuine) and into K595 as well. A bright radiance surrounds the outer movements, the first purposeful, the last almost a joyous ‘hunting’ finale, while the Larghetto, yearning in mood, finds Bax occasionally decorating his line. And Over observes Mozart’s instruction to use single strings in the orchestral parts marked ‘solo’.

So does Hannu Lintu, partnering Angela Hewitt in a first movement as purposeful. But Hewitt interprets the Larghetto, embellishments added, in blunter terms, her tempo also alla breve as marked. Conversely – this may surprise – she weights the finale to reflect rumination or melancholia, and propounds it supremely well too. Lintu concurs, separating violins and offering her even better conducting in K453, fastidious throughout about accentuation, articulation and string-wind balance. They deduce sobriety in the outer movements that might not raise reservations in the first but which do in the finale, where the element of comedy is played down, the knockabout Presto ending not quite the last laugh, as Hewitt describes. Yet the Andante evokes the finest in her, its trajectory exposed through pathos and proud gesture, the pauses treated as silences to generate expectancy for daring harmonic modulations. That’s model musicianship, drawing attention away from mildly repressed string sound and sometimes a more forwardly placed piano in this concerto.