Jonathan Cohen and Les Violons du Roy brook no compromises at the dramatic start of the great D minor Concerto, K466, a palpable call to arms that Charles Richard-Hamelin responds to with flair and considerable elegance. He shapes and phrases the music with a keen eye (or ear) on its dialogic potential, driving forwards energetically without bullying or indulging in display for its own sake. This performance is of a piece, intense and finely detailed, and come the first-movement cadenza at 10'48" – Richard-Hamelin’s own – we’re presented with a brilliant array of motifs from the movement rearranged with ingenuity and recreative cunning that would have been worthy of Horowitz.

Richard-Hamelin also does ‘simplicity’ in Mozart, the start of the D minor’s Romance (in B flat) being a perfect example of this ‘less is more’ approach, playing that is at once sculpted and coolly expressive. The turbulent fast minor-key middle section is a furrowed brow following on from the sublime smile at the movement’s opening, though Richard-Hamelin works his way back to sublimity as if unruffled by the central storm.

When it comes to the A major Concerto, K488, the inclement weather has passed and we’re confronted with one of the most exquisitely elaborate passages in Mozart’s entire output: at 4'31" into the first movement the strings intone an especially beautiful theme, then, a few seconds later, Richard-Hamelin trippingly dispatches Mozart’s decorated version of the same theme. Pure magic! The central Adagio, a perfectly paced siciliano, soft in texture, unfolds gracefully, with the odd added but subtle ornamentation (after the brighter middle section).

We’re additionally given an orchestral ‘encore’ in the guise of the austere C minor Adagio and Fugue, the characteristic string tone of Les Violons du Roy more conspicuous here than elsewhere on the disc, the growling basses at the beginning ominous to a fault, the fugue nudged forwards at a relatively brisk tempo. This Mozart inhabits the ill-boding world of the Requiem, or seems to, and makes for an effective if unexpected close to an excellent, well-engineered programme.