Virtuosity is a remarkable thing and virtuosos remarkable people. Few more so, perhaps, than Felix Klieser (b1991), a cornist born without arms, who plays what appears to be an unadapted horn, operating the valves with his left foot. How? He has developed a tripod that clamps the horn at the required position and he sits, hooking his leg on to the instrument’s body. He controls tone by regulating lip and air pressure, while long stopped passages are facilitated by a further invention, a second tripod controlled by his right foot. Listeners will have heard him performing Strauss’s ‘Alphorn’ with Christiane Karg (8/14) and may have caught his mixed recital debut disc, ‘Reveries’, a couple of years ago.

He returns with a disc of Classical concertos – the two by (or associated with) Haydn, one by Haydn’s little brother Michael, and a pair of reconstructed fragments by Mozart. Were one to be hyper-critical, one might highlight some rhythmic slackness in shorter note values; but then whose toe-dexterity (for want of a better phrase) could possibly approach Klieser’s? Perhaps the dynamic range is somewhat unvaried; although in the Mozart – let’s be honest, the best music on the disc – Klieser phrases and characterises most winningly. And to hear how agile he can be at his best, listen to the central Allegro non troppo of Michael Haydn’s Concertino, which is played with breathtaking accuracy and élan. The Heilbronn players accompany with spirit; there is a prominent harpsichord continuo. Klieser is a remarkable player and it goes without saying that this disc is just as remarkable in its own right.