Poor Antonio Salieri (1750-1825). Once he was a hugely influential musical figure in Vienna, director of Italian Opera at the Nationaltheater, and Hofkapellmeister. Gluck was a supporter, Joseph II a patron. But his reputation waned steeply after 1800; and, inexplicably, he was implicated in the whispered poison theories surrounding Mozart’s death.

Rivalry between the two composers may have been due to Salieri’s eminence as an opera composer in 1780s Vienna: in all he wrote over 40 works. Thomas Fey’s selection of orchestral pieces from 10 of them shows that Salieri was no pushover. Neither is Fey who, as usual, couples individuality in interpretation to dynamic, sizzling conducting and whiplash precision of ensemble. His graphic feel for drama at the heart of music is here sharpened to accommodate the expressive power of the operatic medium. From the rasping blaze of trumpets, high horns and timpani in Il mondo alla rovescia to the beautifully shaped Adagio from the Sinfonia to La calamita de’ cuori, Fey’s grasp of extremes is a fearless re-creation of Salieri’s creative invention. Bravo!

No, Salieri didn’t poison Mozart, though as a hospitalised, feeble 73-year old with dementia he allegedly admitted to doing so. Nevertheless in his book Maligned Master, biographer Volkmar Braunbehrens firmly states that “there is no evidence of anyone having heard Salieri make the confession nor of how the rumour was spread in Vienna”. Mozart? Dr Peter J Davies has deduced he died of “streptococcal infection, renal failure, venesection, cerebral haemorrhage and terminal broncho-pneumonia”.