Symphony No 77 in B flat - Haydn

Piano Concerto No 13 in C, K415 - Mozart

Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K466 - Mozart

All the works in Tuesday's concert at the NCH were written within a few years of each other - in 1784, 1783, and 1785 respectively - but they did not sound as like each other as might have been expected. Haydn's Symphony is a sort of intellectual dance; Mozart's Concerto No 13 is all light and sparkle; Concerto No 20 is profoundly serious in its extension of melody. It was in these two concertos that the Orchestra of St Cecilia was at its best, acting as a foil to the crystalline playing and beautifully shaped line of Hugh Tinney at the piano.

The conductor, Geoffrey Spratt, ensured the balance was just as it should be, allowing the piano to have prominence most of the time - for what are these works if not piano sonatas with an orchestral accompaniment? - but blending the sounds where appropriate.

At one point in No 20, I thought that Hugh Tinney was overdoing it - but on consulting the programme I discovered the foreign body in the piece was by Beethoven - the cadenza he had written was so emphatic that it briefly disturbed the Mozartian flow.

Haydn's Symphony No 77, which lacked the trumpets and drums of the Mozart, was nonetheless colourful, but it was only in the Menuetto and Finale that the music became alive, carried along on the rhythmic impetus. In the first two movements the performance needed to be tautened up: it was in danger of sounding perfunctory.