A previous Renaud Capuçon Mozart recording with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Louis Langrée (Concertos Nos 1 and 3, with the Sinfonia concertante in E flat featuring viola player Antoine Tamestit) reveals interpretative traits in common with this new complete set of the concertos (minus the Sinfonia), save that the earlier recordings are supported by a marginally heavier accompaniment.

Having enjoyed Capuçon’s selection of Mozart sonatas for piano and violin with pianist Kit Armstrong (K296-547, plus a couple of sets of variations – DG, 9/23), where both players enter into consequential dialogue, I was initially optimistic. As it happens, here those expectations have been only partially realised. Why? A possible explanation emerges from the last sentence of Raoul Mörchen’s booklet essay ‘Mozart for Beginners?’: ‘According to Renaud Capuçon’, we’re told, ‘it’s best if you can give the impression that you’re encountering this music for the very first time.’ That’s fine for listeners, I’d say, even for violinists. But not for reviewers. Take the gorgeous little envoi that closes the second movement of the Fourth Concerto, K218 (at 5'21"), then turn to the more personal Arthur Grumiaux under Colin Davis (at 6'01") and you’ll understand why, to paraphrase a British PM of the not too-distant past, ‘this reviewer is not for forgetting’.

And my recall is by no means limited to much-vaunted golden oldies. Capuçon and his Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne offer us elegantly phrased reportage, well recorded, but turn to Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica in, say, the first movement of the Second Concerto, K211, and a crucial added ingredient immediately comes to the fore: individuality. Both recordings offer deftly pointed detail but Kremer et al lift the music from the page in a way that allows us to forget its provenance and concentrate instead on its more conversational aspects.

Kremer and his band again score handsomely at the start of the G major Third Concerto, K216, where subsidiary accompanying material buzzes away not far from the surface and Kremer’s keenly accented first entry makes a strong impression. Capuçon is excellent in his own way though less characterful, as he is in the ‘Turkish’ Fifth Concerto, K219. Best of all is the Rondo in C, K373, which is beautifully played; the Adagio in E, K261, too. Both pieces were conceived as alternative movements within the cycle but their interpretative excellence is not enough to sway the balance in Capuçon’s favour. Summing up, this set proves an enjoyable listen but for me it doesn’t quite equal the best of what is already out there.