Recordings of Mozart’s orchestral serenades are still relatively uncommon, so this disc of two is welcome. Mozart composed them during his years in Salzburg, where, performed outdoors, they added lustre to such pleasantly happy city occasions as the end of a university term (K204) or the nameday of a local nobleperson (K247).

K204 is one of several that combine a complete set of ‘symphonic’ movements with violin concerto movements, a convenient way of making a 40-minute piece, not least because it could later be filleted to make a perfectly serviceable four-movement symphony, as indeed Mozart did with this very piece. Conducting the modern instruments of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Roger Norrington is typically attentive to the music’s gestural language and takes the opportunity to show his usual sense of fun in the switching metres of the finale. Leader Willi Zimmermann is an efficient soloist in the demanding concerto movements. Somehow, though, the feeling is of the piece being a bit too controlled, the notes over-clipped, the whole lacking the dash and sheer joy in orchestral sound that can make the music of this period in Mozart’s life so bracing.

K247 is more successful, set in motion by an energetic Allegro and continuing on its way with grace and good humour. Norrington finds a better balance between individual events and the music’s overall momentum (for instance in the first of the two Minuet movements and again in the romping finale), but although a greater warmth in the string-playing brings us closer to the genial summer-night glow that ought by rights to characterise this kind of music, it is often compromised by intonation smudges and a coarseness in high-lying violin passages (of which there are quite a few). A less chilly acoustic might have helped too.