We reach the end of Brautigam’s Mozart concerto cycle with the four ‘early’ works. These were long assumed to be examples of the 11-year-old’s prodigious gifts, before research in the last century showed the facts to be slightly more prosaic: that these were in fact largely reworkings of sonata movements by contemporary German composers.

You may be thinking: juvenile Mozart? So what? That this is more than a curiosity is down to the performances – the period-instrument Cologne Academy under Michael Alexander Willens are ardent, immediate and receptive to Brautigam’s every move. And that every move is delivered via a wonderfully characterful McNulty fortepiano adds considerably to the experience, which is beautifully captured by BIS’s engineers.

Wisely, the disc opens with the Third Concerto, arguably the most striking piece here; even the passagework is given with great colour, while Brautigam relishes the little harmonic twists in the slow movement and brings alive Mozart’s ornamentation with the requisite delicacy. The finale (based on CPE Bach’s La boehmer) is thrilling, an irresistible chase in which the horns are superbly forward.

The performers make the best case for the somewhat less characterful First Concerto (whose second movement is the only original piece, by Mozart father and son), the élan of the orchestral playing adding greatly to its memorability. The dotted theme that dominates the first movement of No 2, K39, has a rather swaggering demeanour here and the lower end of the McNulty’s range is heard to good effect; there are more instances of vibrant bass textures in the opening movement of No 4, which also has a touching slow movement in the minor.

Those wedded to Brautigam’s Mozart cycle will need no encouragement from me, but such is the communicativeness of the playing on this disc that its appeal reaches well beyond that.