Two discs of works by Mozart for solo instruments and orchestra, but with none of the usual suspects – and the reconstructors have been out in force. In the case of the MultiPiano Ensemble, Tomer Lev has alighted on a two-piano Larghetto and the exposition of an Allegro, known in a completion by Mozart’s friend and musical executor Maximilian Stadler but here augmented into a work for pianos and orchestra. Mozart’s habit was to write down ideas in fragmentary form as an aide-memoire to which he would later return when a performance opportunity arose. It wasn’t his practice to preserve orchestral thoughts in two-piano score in this manner but such musical archaeology is nevertheless valuable in turning up such rough diamonds and presenting them in a persuasive fashion. Mozart barely wrote a bad note in his life, so there is plenty of treasure to be mined from works at such an early stage of contemplation that they don’t even make it into the Köchel catalogue.

Gotthard Odermatt unearths the exposition and solo entry of an oboe concerto’s first movement and amplifies it into a sonata movement of over 11 minutes – a worthy sister work to the familiar Oboe Concerto that Albrecht Mayer recorded with Claudio Abbado some years ago. The remainder of the album consists of arrangements for oboes of various dimensions, with an Ave verum corpus for cor anglais and strings that is bound to be catnip for Classic FM schedulers. Refashionings of concert arias and Exsultate, jubilate demonstrate how close these works are to vocal concertos, while the recasting for oboe and harpsichord of the Flute and Harp Concerto exudes a rather different brand of charm. Once the ear is used to the shifts of key and orchestration (to accommodate instrumental range and fingering), and even the odd editorial nip and tuck, there is much here to beguile.

Mayer is principal oboe with the Berlin Philharmonic and plays everything with the technical ease and richness of tone that would be expected, with sterling work from his Bremen accomplices and Vital Julian Frey on a range of keyboards. The MultiPiano Ensemble, on the other hand, limit themselves only to concert grands in the two concertos Mozart composed for such gatherings. The triple concerto was composed for the mother and daughters of the Lodron family, Salzburg nobility who were friends of the Mozarts. It’s usually heard in the later (authentic) arrangement for two pianos, so it’s good to have the rare opportunity to hear it fully kitted out. The double concerto, on the other hand, was composed for Mozart and his sister to play.

The Russian-Israeli MultiPianists barely put a foot wrong but in audibly not wishing to get in each other’s way, their performances transpire with a slight air of carefulness and politeness. There is enough delineation to distinguish each player as placed in the sound picture but the three instruments are barely allowed off the leash to exploit their full dynamic range. Turn to the Jussen brothers’ recording and you hear (admittedly in the two-piano version of the triple) a pair of soloists working both as co-conspirators and as rivals, revelling in the cholesterol-rich sound of a pair of Steinways and – alongside assertive accompaniment from the Academy and Neville Marriner – fully exploiting all the effects at which Mozart was surely aiming in these youthful, playful works.