Good things come to those who wait, they say, and at last – three decades on from its inauguration – Robert Levin’s survey of Mozart’s music for piano and orchestra draws to its conclusion. Appropriately enough, this final instalment closes with the last of the keyboard concertos, dated 11 months to the day before the composer’s death but possibly commenced up to three years earlier. Its immediate precursor, the Coronation Concerto, K537, appeared on Vol 5 (L’Oiseau-Lyre, 1/98), so the principal coupling here is the grand C major Concerto, K503, of 1785/86.

Common throughout the series is Levin’s exploratory approach to the solo part, going far further than the notes as they appear on the page and supplying what is implied between and beyond the lines. His decades of experience mean that he never exceeds the parameters of Mozartian style in his improvised cadenzas and lead-ins or his liberal ornamentations and augmentations of sometimes apparently plain lines. While some may find his incursions over-fussy, they are by and large ear-catching and persuasive. Even at the magical moment in K595’s central Larghetto, where the piano’s statement of the theme is accompanied solely by flute and violins – a passage that surely as well as any supports Alfred Einstein’s view that this of all concertos ‘stands at the gate of heaven, at the door of eternity’ – Levin’s adornment of the simple melody doesn’t detract from its rapt elegance. His pianism never crosses over into mere garrulity and he always pulls back from coming across as the cleverest guy in the room.

That slow movement is taken at a mobile tempo; at 5'50" it’s far less sprawling than, say, Curzon and Britten (a full nine minutes) and only slightly less spry than Brautigam and Willens (5'22"). Other attractions are the pleasing sound of the Academy, with delicious wind solos and rousing horns, which are especially telling in the grandeur of K503. The piano remains the Chris Maene copy of a 1795 Walter, its characteristic ‘ping’ enabling it to cut through the rich orchestration, based here on a string section of 8.6.4.3.2. As a bonus, Louise Alder guests in a dramatic reading of the heavenly concert aria Ch’io mi scordi di te?, which Mozart composed to perform as a farewell to the soprano Nancy Storace. If Levin’s interventionist but period-informed approach is up your street, then this generous and sumptuously presented package is eminently recommendable.