Would we play Mozart’s last three symphonies any differently if we didn’t know they were his last? – if we hadn’t been indoctrinated with the aura of seriousness, finality, indeed mortality, with which they are surrounded? These thoughts are aroused by the liveliness and high spirits of these recordings, of Nos 39 and 40 in particular. Jos van Immerseel, better known as fortepianist than conductor, sets quickish tempi in almost all the movements. The Allegro of the E flat work has a delightfully free flow, with much vitality, and the contrapuntal interplay is much more apparent than usual. There are few of the usual tragic overtones in the Andante, gracefully played and truly con moto as Mozart specified. Here, too, the textures are bright and clear. The minuet goes with a good swing, its phrasing strongly marked, and the finale with real ebullience.

Then in the G minor, even, there isn’t the usual darkness and foreboding. The first movement is very much on its toes, at a lively tempo (again, as Mozart specified, Allegro molto), almost athletic, with hints of wit. It’s a very shapely performance with a real feeling for the movement’s broad outlines. The Andante seemed to me a shade mechanical and rather inexpressive; there is a touch of relentlessness too about the minuet though the brisk tempo and well-defined textures serve well. And the finale has a splendid rhythm and momentum, with much natural and musical phrasing.

Part of all this comes, of course, from the period instruments, and the perceptive way they are handled. Some conductors direct period orchestras apologetically, as if the best they can do is to make them sound like modern ones; Van Immerseel balances them carefully, has little or no string vibrato and clearly requires precise articulation. That is why we hear more of the inner lines. In the Jupiter, however, he is on terms with a less chamber-music-like approach. This is a trumpets-and-drums symphony, in martial C major. The manner is more forceful, sometimes rather abrupt; but again the movement is powerfully shaped, and the recording has great presence. Again, a quickish Andante, possibly a little inflexible at the expense of expressive detail, but again Mozart’s astonishing textures are illuminated to fine effect. The dense writing in the minuet profits from a finely balanced texture, and so above all does the finale where one is constantly aware of all that is going on below the surface of the music. It is passionate, too: listen to those timpani thwacks in the development and the power of the extraordinary recapitulation – and the amazing five-part counterpoint of the coda, which I’ve never heard so clearly before, on a recording or at a concert.

These may not be everyone’s performances. But any that make someone who, like me, knows these symphonies considerably better than the back of his own hand, listen to the music afresh and hear new things in it, are versions to treasure.

The Bassoon Concerto is perhaps a surprising fill-up, but it’s an old favourite of mine, and I enjoyed Jane Bower’s reading on a period bassoon, delightfully uneven in tone – fruity at the bottom, rich and vocal in the middle, a shade tubby at the top – but always beautifully tuned and with many neatly imaginative touches. It’s a pity the CDs aren’t matched by decent sleeve-notes.