Ian Page and The Mozartists’ second dip into the Classical-era repertoire subset called Sturm und Drang alights on the sine qua non of that style, Haydn’s Symphony No 39 in G minor (c1768), whose agitated language, riven with hiccups and non sequiturs, exerted a profound influence on composers across Europe. Many of them also adopted the work’s unusual scoring, with four rather than two horns, crooked in different keys; given the limits of valveless instruments, this enabled more notes to be played and, indeed, for minor chords to be contrived (the harmonic series encompassed by these instruments lacks a minor third).

A number of copycat G minor symphonies in the manner of Haydn’s were thus produced, not least by this ensemble’s namesake composer (No 25, K183, 1773), but here they offer one by Mozart’s boyhood idol JC Bach, who puts aside his customary galant manners for something uncharacteristically anguished in the last of his Op 6 Symphonies (published in 1770). Along with Haydn, one of the most assiduous cultivators of Sturm und Drang was the prolific Johann Baptist Vanhal, here represented by a D minor Symphony that seethes with frenzied passion but is not without passages of lyric repose. Swedish mezzo Ida Ränslöv is the soloist in a pair of restless arias from Gluck’s Paride ed Elena (‘Paris and Helen’, first heard in Vienna in 1770) and a more hyperactive one from Mysliveček’s first opera, Semiramide (1765), along with a chaste movement with plangent obbligato oboe (James Eastaway) from Haydn’s Stabat mater (1767).

Page and his players once again demonstrate their total identification with this music in playing of dizzying drive and accuracy. Comprehensive notes by the conductor give not only the musical and historical background but welcome explanations of the dramatic situations of the operatic pieces. Once again, high artistry conspires with scholarship and strength of concept to create a programme that scintillates from start to finish.