What’s the collective noun for bassoons? A grumble of bassoons, after the Grandfather in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf? A faculty of bassoons, perhaps, following Strauss’s deployment of the instrument to depict the pedantic professors in Till Eulenspiegel? A sweep, after Dukas’s use of a trio of bassoons to represent the brooms in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice? The romantics and moderns eagerly latched on to the gruff or comic opportunities presented by the bassoon but for Mozart the instrument had quite different associations, invariably appearing in his most mellifluous woodwind solo groups and often taking a cameo role as an indispensable tonal colouring for his loveliest melodies.

Mozart’s sole surviving Bassoon Concerto is the earliest of his concertos for woodwind instruments. Now, in a rare alignment of constellations, four new recordings arrive within a couple of months of each other – two of them appearing on the same label. The longest-established player among this quartet, Peter Whelan, has recorded the work before, in a hugely enjoyable coupling with Haydn’s Sinfonia concertante (Hyperion, 7/15). Here he fronts his own period-instrument group, Ensemble Marsyas, with a slightly smaller string section than Arcangelo’s on the earlier disc.

The other three recordings are on modern instruments and from award-winning players of the new generation: Mathis Stier (b1994), principal bassoon with the WDR Symphony Orchestra; Sophie Dervaux (b1991), principal with the Vienna Philharmonic; and Theo Plath (b1994), principal with the Frankfurt Radio SO. As you might imagine, there is little in technical terms to place any one of these exceptional players above the others. It might be observed that Stier is the most expansive in the central Andante ma adagio and (by a narrow margin) the nimblest in the closing minuet-rondo, Dervaux and Whelan the fleetest in the opening Allegro. Just as in his previous recording, Whelan extracts maximum characterisation from the music, emphasising its playfulness, tugging gently at the pulse – almost mugging for the microphone. Dervaux opts for what might seem a plainer presentation, letting the beauty and consistency of her tone carry the music. The Salzburg Mozarteum offer the most refined accompaniment for Dervaux and Plath (although in the latter there is some audible encouragement from Howard Griffiths on the podium).

Perhaps a choice between them comes down to couplings. Whelan offers an all-Mozart programme: the Sonata, K292, for bassoon and bass instrument – here expanded into a quasi-improvised piano accompaniment by Kristian Bezuidenhout – and a gripping reading of the C minor Serenade, K388, complete with bassoon fireworks in the finale and some fabulous natural horn-playing. Dervaux and Stier opt for concertos by Mozart’s contemporaries and forebears. On Stier’s programme, JS Bach’s Oboe d’amore Concerto, BWV1055, is a known quantity, here transposed down an octave and a tone, but an A minor Concerto by JW Hertel takes the bassoon into wholly new dramatic territory reminiscent of the dark unpredictability of Hertel’s north German colleague, CPE Bach. On Dervaux’s album, Hummel’s expansive Grand Concerto (over 22 minutes, against Mozart’s 16 17) is fairly well known, especially its ridiculously catchy finale, while Vanhal’s C major Concerto, heard far less often, is audibly cut from the same cloth as the Mozart and gilded with sparkling trumpets.

Plath’s K191 is part of a larger-scale project, sponsored by the Orpheum Foundation of Switzerland, to record all of Mozart’s concertos with young soloists. Alongside him on Vol 2 are violinist Ziyu He in the G major Concerto, K216, and Mélodie Zhao in the first of the fully original piano concertos, K175, while Vol 1 features Stephen Waarts in the B flat Violin Concerto, K207, Can Çakmur in the ‘Lützow’ Piano Concerto, K246, and Ivo Dudler in the Horn Concerto No 4, K495 – the one whose finale was so memorably parodied by Flanders and Swann. Six big musical personalities, not all of them making their recording debuts, exploiting all the opportunities for youthful impetuosity and display that this (predominantly) youthful music has to offer. ‘Next Generation Mozart Soloists’ is the billing, and each performance is sure to be a valuable statement of intent for these musicians as well as an intriguing launchpad for an ambitious series. Griffiths directs dapper accompaniments on both initial volumes, with Camerata Schweiz replacing the Mozarteum on Vol 1.

Just as enticing is a new release pairing the concertos for multiple pianos: the double concerto, K365 (1779), and the two-piano arrangement of the triple concerto, K242 (1776). The pianists are the French husband-and-wife team of Prisca Benoit and Mladen Tcholitch (not biographed in the documentation), with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists under Lavard Skou-Larsen. Neither work can fail to delight, and these are pleasingly buoyant performances, fully alive to the wit and playfulness of the music – certainly to a greater degree than the ‘air of carefulness and politeness’ I found in the MultiPiano Ensemble’s recent recording (Hyperion, 5/21), even if Neville Marriner and his St Martin players offer a more subtle, refined but still assertive balance in their accompaniment for the Jussen brothers (DG, 1/16). The programme is filled up with a slightly diffuse ‘concert fantasy’ concocted by Miroslav Popovic out of themes from The Magic Flute, once again played with exuberance and verve.

More Mozartian operatic paraphrases appear on a new recording from cornist Felix Klieser. Readers may remember Klieser from a disc of mainly Haydn concertos (8/15) – a player born without arms, who uses the toes of his left foot to play a horn mounted on a frame. This would make him a remarkable player even without his evident sensitivity and identification with the music included here: a communicative and extrovert account of the Horn Quintet, K407, two concertos by Haydn with slimmed-down accompaniment and some aria transcriptions from Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute. The Zemlinsky Quartet are his eager co-conspirators in these affectionate and outgoing performances