Discovered at the British Library by Nicole van Bruggen and Anneke Veenhoff is this forgotten, anonymous arrangement, from 1809, for basset clarinet and piano of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. The reworking is intriguing and the musicians are surprised the piece hasn’t been considered an “independent work for basset clarinet and fortepiano”. It cannot be. The fortepiano part is only a transcription, unidiomatic too, because no keyboard instrument can imitate a string quartet – especially this one of 1789, its mixture of radiance and tears (perhaps reflecting Mozart’s pleasure at Constanza’s recovery from serious illness mingling with sorrow at the death of their daughter within a day of her birth) concisely organised to blend and contrast with the solo instrument. No blend plus the wrong sort of contrast are all that’s on offer here.

Some idea of how Mozart might have composed for a dedicated combination of fortepiano and basset clarinet is heard in the Trio. Though the clarinet is a touch too forward and there is some want of dynamic variety, a vibrant impulsiveness that doesn’t override attention to phrasing and modulations runs through this performance. A hint of its qualities is heard at the beginning where Veenhoff, who opens the work, creates expectancy by slightly extending the values of the rests in the first eight bars with no damage to their structure. Her artistic virtues are again to the fore in the Fantasia, thoughtfully interpreted but falling short of portraying its wider dramatic potential. Kristian Bezuidenhout does so most decisively.