Album: Mozart, The Last Concertos – Staier/Coppola/Freiburger Barockorchester, Harmonia Mundi

There are two ways to listen to Freiburg Baroque's latest recording: as a scintillating performance of household favourites or as a work of scholarship. On both counts, it is a success. Andreas Staier's relaxed performance of the 'Piano Concerto in B flat' trips delicately along, accompanied by slender single strings in the solo parts, and accompanying the orchestra in the tutti sections, with cadenzas of unalloyed gaity and invention. In a new reconstruction of the 'Clarinet Concerto', Lorenzo Coppola's coppery 'clarinette d'amour' gives Mozart's final instrumental work some much-needed freshness and spice.