This DVD preserves highlights of a pair of concerts featuring András Schiff during last year’s Mozartwoche at the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg. His accompanists are his own orchestra, Cappella Andrea Barca, of which Schiff says ‘there is no room for egoism here’ – despite naming the ensemble after himself. The piano is a Bechstein, although the booklet contains no further details. It’s a less beefy sound than a Steinway, and this suits it to Schiff’s take on late Mozart and early Beethoven.

The Beethoven he places firmly in the post-Mozartian lineage. This is not Beethoven the nascent revolutionary, angrily tearing up the keyboard, but Beethoven the classicist, learning from his Viennese-school elders and basing his outlook on Mozart’s two late C major concertos, K467 and (especially) K503.

The Bechstein is especially suited to Mozart and the slow movement of K482 is a highlight, with some particularly rapt playing from pianist and orchestra alike. In between comes Schubert’s vernal Fifth Symphony, conducted from memory and clearly with affection, although without undue lingering.

It’s not entirely accurate to say that Schiff directs the concertos from the keyboard: at the openings and whenever he has more than a few bars’ rest, he jumps up to shape the music by hand. Not that he doesn’t direct from the keyboard too: there’s a delicious moment in the Beethoven when he turns to the woodwind and tootles an imaginary pipe at them. The camerawork is fine (the bassoonist is clearly a favourite of the director) and a camera at the end of the keyboard offers a good view of Schiff’s technique. The acoustic is a little boxy but the ear soon adjusts. Only Schiff’s facial contortions may be offputting to some: they range from a beatific smile to a rather unfortunate pout.