The peal and clatter of D major, resplendent with horns and trumpets and the bright resonance of open strings, resounds throughout Mozart’s Salzburg serenades, most of them composed for end-of-year university junketings. Not for the only time (the Haffner Serenade of 1776 is a famous example), K203 of 1774 gives us two works in one: a symphony enclosing a three-movement violin concerto. The Salzburg students evidently expected at least a couple of minuets. Here, as in the Haffner, Mozart provides three, each with an ear-tickling trio featuring solos for, respectively, violin, flute and oboe.

A spirit of coltish exuberance is vital to any performance of this extrovert, largely stress-free music. Using modern instruments with a nod to period style, the expert Mozarteum Orchestra strikes me as well-nigh ideal. The fast movements, underpinned by a lithe bass line, crackle and quiver with life, the minuets balance swagger and grace, and the Andante sixth movement – an Arcadian idyll with muted violins and solo oboe – duly works its magic. The Salzburgers play up the harmonic drama that ruffles the first movement’s development – a brief pointer to later, greater Mozart here. Another moment to savour is the plaintive D minor oboe solo in the trio of the following minuet, delicately timed and expressively ornamented on the repeats. In the interpolated violin concerto the orchestra’s leader Roberto González-Monjas spins a pure, sweet line in the Andante and frolics gleefully in the Allegro. His embellishments and improvised cadenza are spot on.

González-Monjas and his band likewise relish the better-known Serenata notturna, where Mozart pits the orchestra of strings and timpani against a concertino of two violins, viola and double bass. There’s no room for sentiment here but plenty of Mozartian fun and mischief, not least in the extravagant contrasts between thundering tuttis and refined chamber textures. While authentic wooden sticks would have given the timpani a sharper impact, the players enter zestfully into the spirit of the piece, from the proud strut and cheeky added ornaments of the minuet to the lusty folk dance of the finale. The period-instrument versions from Giovanni Antonini (Alpha, 9/21) and Andrew Manze (Harmonia Mundi, 10/03) are more abrasively irreverent in the Serenata. But if you prefer modern instruments you won’t do better than the Salzburgers, who are also lighter on their feet than their rivals in K203 and made me smile more.